The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts ruled this week that the drowning death of the Obama family’s personal chef was an accident.

Tafari Campbell, 45, worked as a sous chef for Barack and Michelle Obama and was visiting Martha’s Vineyard from Dumfries, Virginia, at the time of his passing, authorities said.

Timothy McGuirk, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, told The Washington Post that the chief medical examiner ruled Campbell’s death an accident on Tuesday. He added that the office does not release autopsy reports to the public.

Campbell allegedly was “standing on his paddleboard when he lost his balance and fell off” into the Edgartown Great Pond, the Boston Globe reported at the time of the incident in late July. “He struggled to remain afloat before slipping beneath the water. Campbell was not wearing a life jacket and wasn’t secured to his board. Campbell’s body was found in about 8 feet of water.”

Police said at the time, “A male paddle boarder who had gone into the water appeared to briefly struggle to stay on the surface, and then submerged and did not resurface. … Another paddle boarder was on the pond with him at the time and observed him go under the water.”

After several state and local emergency personnel, including the U.S. Coast Guard, arrived on the scene, Massachusetts State Police divers recovered Campbell’s body approximately 100 feet from the shore shortly before 10 a.m. Authorities said they located Campbell’s body using a boat with an attached side-scan sonar system and aerial support from MSP and U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crews.

“President and Mrs. Obama were not present at the residence at the time of the accident,” Massachusetts State Police said.

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The Obama family said they are “grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man.”

“Tafari was a beloved part of our family,” the family said. “When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House — creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter.”

“That’s why, when we were getting ready to leave the White House, we asked Tafari to stay with us, and he generously agreed. He’s been part of our lives ever since, and our hearts are broken that he’s gone,” the statement continued. “Today we join everyone who knew and loved Tafari — especially his wife Sherise and their twin boys, Xavier and Savin — in grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man.”

Brandon Drey contributed to this report.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A group of Tennessee Republicans declared their intention to eradicate human trafficking in the state at a Tuesday press conference during a hotly contested special session that has received national attention.

The press conference, put on by the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, a conservative advocacy group, featured over a dozen Tennessee Republicans from both the state House and Senate and took place in the state’s old Supreme Court chamber in Nashville. The conference came as Left-leaning protesters showed up at the capitol this week to push for gun control.

The conference was held to discuss a bill dealing with mandating an annual report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and putting more awareness on the issue of human trafficking in the state.

“One of the things we have not done enough of, is drag this issue out into the light,” House Majority Leader William Lamberth said. “Have the TBI and law enforcement work together with the legislature to identify every single community where this is happening and then allocate needs towards that.”

The bill, SB 7088, has the support of Lamberth and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. Unlike many of the other bills that have been filed during the special session, it made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“If you’re engaging in child and human sex trafficking in Tennessee, we’re coming after you. We’re going to war with you,” Johnson said.

Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN) was also present and said that lawmakers had a biblical mandate to fight against trafficking.

According to a summary of the bill, it “requires the bureau to submit a report on child and human trafficking crimes and trends in this state, based upon data available to the bureau, as well as current programs and activities of the bureau’s human trafficking unit.”

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“Human trafficking is the scourge of our time. It happens in our communities. It happens a mile from where we live. It happens even closer than that on certain occasions. We are dedicated to saving women and children and eradicating this scourge,” said Aaron Gulbransen, the executive director of the Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition.

According to TBI, there are up to 600 kids who go missing in Tennessee each month. Some of these are runaways or children in remarkably complex situations; others are trafficked.

The issue of human trafficking has come to forefront with the success of “Sound of Freedom,” the story of Tim Ballard (played by Jim Caviezel), a federal agent who quits his job to rescue a young girl from sex slavery in South America.

TBI previously told The Daily Wire that most children trafficked in Tennessee are not foreign nationals, but kids who were born and raised in the state.