Talk:Killing of Greg Gunn

Thoughts about the work-in-progress

Notes to myself/whoever else is working on this:

• Would really like to find a picture to use here, but there are no pictures of the incident itself and I don't think any of the "in memoriam" pictures on the news sites would meet NFCC 8 (significantly enhances understanding)
• I removed the part about Smith not turning on his bodycam or dashcam when rearranging, I want to add it back in but I'm not sure whether it belongs more in the "confrontation" or "trial" section - it's more relevant to the former but I think it disrupts the flow.
• Also need to add back the context that there had been burglaries in the area and that Gunn supposedly fit the description of the subject.
• Should we mention that Gunn had cocaine in his system? Coroner reported it, see for example [1], and the defense used that in their arguments.
• Would like to add a "legacy" section - were there reactions beyond the local level? Demonstrations, protests, etc.?

creffett (talk) 01:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

My quick notes, don't have time just now to write more:

• I added a short background section that could probably be improved further. I remember reading from a source yesterday that Gunn had some misdemeanors but somehow can't find it today. That should be mentioned when found.
• There were protests according to articles in The Guardian, [2][3]. Not sure if a complete section can be made based on those sources alone.

– Majavah ^{talk · edits} 05:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions

Suggestion to add a bit more clarity to the lead (an Alexa query reads the article lead): "...was shot and killed near his home after fleeing from a stop-and-frisk initiated by Aaron Cody Smith, a white police officer. Smith was charged with murder following the incident^{no need to state the obvious} and sentenced to 14 years in prison for manslaughter in January 2020." Also, in the Trial section, a bit more information should be added about the relocation of the trial and reaction to the verdict by the victim's brother. Quote from The NYTimes: “They brought this case to a very conservative county, expecting a different outcome,” Franklin Gunn, Mr. Gunn’s brother, said after the verdict was read. “But I believe that we have seen the best of Alabama today. One bad apple in a bunch has been weeded out.” I think it speaks volumes GeneralNotability, don't you? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:58, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, ah, yes, that quote is definitely worth adding, and agreed with clarification to the lead. Thank you :) GeneralNotability (talk) 12:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme done, and I found this gem in one of my sources while working on the movement of the trial...Smith's attorneys believe the Montgomery County community has been "infested" with racial prejudice and hatred towards Smith, according to the motion. How about that. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

No, don't change anything else - just nominate it. I don't want to add anymore and disqualify myself from the GAN as a reviewer. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, oh sure, I didn't add that, just thought it was quite the "interesting" quote given the context of the article. Nominated. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:18, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Sources

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Shooting of Greg Gunn/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Atsme (talk · contribs) 15:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Re: Confrontation - suggestion: Around 3:20 AM on February 25, 2016, Gunn was walking home unarmed from a card game... Also, ...and when that failed, he began striking Gunn with his baton. Important note: it should be included that at the 2016 preliminary hearing the state investigator testified that Gunn's fingerprints were not on the paint pole. Re: Post Trial - there was a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his family. GeneralNotability, the last sentence in the lead needs a bit more information. My suggestion: A grand jury indicted Smith for murder but it took nearly four years, including various legal motions and a change of venue to Ozark, Alabama, before his case went to trial. In January 2020, Smith was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for manslaughter.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	N/A - no images were included.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	N/A - no images were included
	7. Overall assessment.	Well done, passes GA criteria.

GAN Discussion

GeneralNotability - I added some suggestions for material that is notable and should be included. When that's done, I'll wrap it up. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:18, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, thank you much! I will try to add that in tonight or tomorrow and will ping you when it's done. Regarding point 6 (illustration), I only found a handful of "in memoriam" type pictures of Gunn in the news articles I cited, and I don't think any of them would contribute enough to the article to overcome WP:NFCC8. GeneralNotability (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, made those tweaks - good spot on both of those links. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

GeneralNotability - sorry, but there's a tiny bit more to add to the lead. I'm pinging you here because I didn't get to sign in the box above. After you add the material, I'll go over it once more in the morning with fresh eyes, and hopefully will close it out. We got through this pretty quickly - you did a good job! Be thinking DYK. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:24, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, thanks, I've expanded the lead a little - didn't quite go with your wording, but think I got the gist. I added a couple more things that came up during my reading, so make sure to take a look at the last paragraph of the "Trial" section as well. As for DYK, I actually snuck a potential hook in this morning as I was working on it, the line about Smith's lawyers calling him "the first and only Montgomery Police Officer ever to be arrested and charged immediately after an officer-involved shooting". Thought that might make for a good DYK. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:04, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 12:29, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Aaron Cody Smith, who fatally shot Greg Gunn in 2016, was the first Montgomery Police officer to be arrested immediately after an officer-involved shooting? Source: They also described Smith as "the first and only Montgomery Police Officer ever to be arrested and charged immediately after an officer-involved shooting." [4]

Improved to Good Article status by GeneralNotability (talk). Self-nominated at 13:27, 5 August 2020 (UTC).

• Comment: Didn't do a QPQ, this is my second DYK. I'm aware that this is a place where we need to tread carefully given BLP concerns, but I think the description is appropriately neutral ("shot" rather than, say, "killed" or "murdered") and his own defense team is the source of this hook. GeneralNotability (talk) 13:29, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I've done some crime articles and I think this is fine. He's been convicted so it can be treated as fact, even if he is appealing. I strengthened it to "fatally shot", linked the police force, and cut a little redundancy to tighten it up. Full review forthcoming. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Query: Article nominated the day promoted to GA, long enough, neutral (though I'd have liked to see the GA be a bit broader, including the autopsy results that indicated heroin in the victim's system[1]), well cited, no copyvio detected. Confirmed nominator's second DYK, QPQ waived. Hook is formatted, of good length. However, the source for "immediately after" is Smith's defense attorneys who were trying to establish prejudice against their client in a motion to change the trial venue, while the fact is that the arrest came on March 2, a week after the incident. I feel that it isn't neutral as it's trying to push an agenda, and to say one week is immediate is a bit of a stretch. I feel that needs a rephrase, or a new hook. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:58, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Reidgreg, acknowledged, that's a fair point. I will try to redo the hook this weekend. GeneralNotability (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Reidgreg, I'll drop that hook, I am unable to find a neutral source with a similar statement (or even something like "(N)th Montgomery PD officer to be arrested following an officer-involved shooting." How do you feel about this:

• ALT1 ... that eight judges recused themselves from the trial for the shooting of Greg Gunn? source: Eight judges recused themselves from the trial. [5]

• Needs a little more wordsmithing, I'll do that tonight or tomorrow, but I think the trial going through a total of nine judges is pretty interesting. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:52, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks good, hook fact cited in article. Will wait for you to finalize. – Reidgreg (talk) 12:24, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Reidgreg, sorry about the delay. Let's just go with ALT1 as written - I feel like the wording is a little awkward but I can't think of a better way to phrase it. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:47, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Slight rephrase (by Reidgreg):

• ALT1a: ... that eight judges recused themselves from proceedings in the fatal shooting of Greg Gunn?

Approve ALT1, ALT1a: Hooks of good length, formatted, interesting and cited in article, All else as above. – Reidgreg (talk) 15:35, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 3 September 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Clear consensus to move. (non-admin closure) Vpab15 (talk) 23:12, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

---

Shooting of Greg Gunn → Killing of Greg Gunn – Per WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. Greg Gunn was killed. The perpetrator was convicted of manslaughter (as in he slaughtered a man, he killed him). What more do we need to change this to the accurate title it should be. This title stinks of journalese. A POV push to excuse police. A court of law has found that the police officer was guilty of the crime. Why does our article not clearly indicate that from the start, in the title. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 00:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• I believe shooting implies killing in this sense. It doesn't excuse any party, nor is biased. Shooting is more accurate and concise because it specifies how he was killed. He wasn't stabbed, he was shot. WhoAteMyButter (📬│✏️) 06:06, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

We have many articles about people being murdered by shooting and the perpetrator was found guilty. We do not specify manner of killing in the title of these aforementioned articles about murders. We simply say "Murder of ..." Why is this an exception being made here except because the killer is a police officer?

There are 6 articles with the title beginning with "Stabbing of ...". In each instance, except one rarely edited article which should be moved, the victim survived. "Shooting of ..." is a bad euphemism we have adopted to avoid saying that police sometimes kill people. By not saying he was killed, we imply that he lived. The fact that he was killed is the most notable aspect of this subject, not that he was shot.

I have been told in RM after RM after RM that the title "Killing ..." is avoided because the perpetrator has not been found guilty. Here is one where the perpetrator was found guilty in a court of law. Why then are we still avoiding the appropriate title? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 07:08, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Re: doesn't excuse any party, that is exactly what I am saying. A court of law found him guilty. There is no reason for us to excuse him. By avoiding saying he killed Greg Gunn, we are saying he may not be guilty. The court is the most reliable source on his guilt or innocence. By not including their conclusion, we are pushing a POV not supported by the source. Re: Shooting is more accurate and concise. It is not. "Shooting" is one character longer. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 07:23, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Just a note re: I believe shooting implies killing in this sense. We have some articles titled "Shooting of ..." where the victim did not die, most recently Shooting of Jacob Blake. BegbertBiggs (talk) 10:45, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support this seems like an obviously more-correct title. We can't call it Murder of because the cop wasn't convicted of murder, but the guy definitely was killed, not just shot. Should have been at Killing of from the beginning, as it had been ruled a homicide. But C&C, what I've typically seen is we can't move from Killing of to Murder of without a conviction, not that we can't move Death/Shooting/whatever of to Killing of? Usually it's inexperienced editors or POV-pushers who are arguing to move from Killing of to Death of or to Murder of, people who don't really understand (or refuse to understand) what a homicide ruling means. —valereee (talk) 13:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

  Valereee, this shows the scores of articles that have been ruled a homicide by a medical examiner and some that have been convicted of manslaughter. Yet, there is a repeated call to keep some arbitrary consistency to "Shooting of ...". --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 16:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

  Cripes, are those mostly about shooting deaths? I stand corrected. I thought we'd had discussion about this somewhere and agreed on language. Did I dream that? —valereee (talk) 17:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• Neutral I would say that shooting implies killing, as when people are shot, they tend to die. We could move it to "Manslaughter of Greg Gunn", as that's what the court ruled, but that's obviously unwieldy and less clear. "Killing" would also work, so I'd be fine if it was moved, but I don't really see the benefit in moving the page. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 14:13, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Even in the US, fewer than 1 in 3 firearms injuries results in death.¹ Although I suppose that notable shootings likely to have a Wikipedia article will tend to have fatalities. – Reidgreg (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support. I was also thinking of Homicide of Greg Gunn, but "Killing of" is the convention for naming such articles so best to go with that for consistency with other articles. – Reidgreg (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
• Fine by me, though I do think we might want a broader discussion to standardize the naming scheme across articles. My biggest concern is that the ruling is in appeal - what happens if the verdict is overturned? Also, it's kinda depressing that we have so many "(shooting/killing/murder) of (person)" that we need a standardized naming scheme... GeneralNotability (talk) 17:15, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

I would argue it should stay at this title since killing does not imply mens rea. However, when a murder is overturned, we move articles back. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:13, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• Actually, I'd like to change from "eh, whatever" to Support, and I think it is time to set aside consistency and form a new consensus. My reasoning is thus: an article title should communicate the thing that is notable. This event isn't notable because Gunn was shot, it is notable because he was killed. Ask yourself this: if Gunn had been killed some other way during this altercation, would there have been as much outcry and media response (and, therefore, as much notability)? Recall that Gunn was also beaten with a baton and tased (possibly pepper-sprayed as well? I feel like I read that in one of the sources but I could be misremembering). I believe that if any of those had killed Gunn, there would have been just as much outcry over his death and that this article would still exist. Thus, I feel that "killing" is the appropriate title, as that's where the notability derives from. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:14, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Per WP:CONSISTENCY with similar articles, eg. Killing of George Floyd. Personally I dispute the premise that "killing" implies intent, while "shooting" does not. In fact we had that very debate at ERRORS this week, with someone claiming that "Diana was killed in a car crash" was inaccurate, because there was no intent to kill on the part of the driver. But that's the way many of the headlines framed it, so I'm not convinced by that argument. I'd also request editors to keep political opinions out of these debates. Yes, I agree that the killing/shooting/homicide of Mr Gunn was a terrible tragedy and it's right that the cop was brought to justice. Perhaps he should have also received a harsher sentence. But the naming debate should centre on Wikipedia policies, and naming of other similar articles, not on how outraged we are about the incident. But anyway, overall I'm supporting the move so all's good! Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 17:48, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

  I apologize for that. I have no strong feelings about this case. In fact, I did not know of it until now. My unhelpful anger and outrage is at the intransigence of proponents of the "Shooting of ..." naming scheme for cases where the victim died and a medical examiner determined it was a homicide. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:58, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

  Sure, no worries and I do understand where you're coming from. It would be wrong to use an unusual or euphemistic title in either direction, when there are plain and fully descriptive titles available to us. We could argue over whether "shooting" is a euphemism or not - I wouldn't say so, since it's a literal description of what happened; Abraham Lincoln and JFK were also killed in shootings - but that's not really the issue here since we can agree that killing works as well or better than shooting as a description, and that it matches other articles.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONSISTENCY. There are 118 entries under Category:Black people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States and all of those 118 entries use the main title header "Shooting of..." or the name of the victim. Not a single one uses the header "Killing of..." A single departure from Wikipedia standard form solely for this entry, thus making it the first under that category to use the form "Killing of...", would be counterintuitive. However, taking into account this and other such nominations, if there were a mass nomination of all "Shooting of..." headers under that category to "Fatal shooting of...", I would support such a proposal. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:22, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  Roman Spinner, that's not correct. Some of them are redirects to Murder of, Killing of, etc. Many of them have the subject's name as the article title. —valereee (talk) 10:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, and this is interesting...we seem to be much less consistent when we aren't just looking at black people. Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States. Huh. I wonder why that would be? So when it's a black person being shot to death, we're more likely to call it a shooting. That is so very weird. —valereee (talk) 10:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  And here's a white woman shot by a Somali-American cop named Mohammed Noor: Killing of Justine Damond. Curiouser and curiouser lol —valereee (talk) 11:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

In my description I did indicate that "all of those 118 entries use the main title header "Shooting of..." or the name of the victim". Among those 118 entries there are indeed 20 italicized redirects. Some of those redirects are duplicates, with the name of the victim in italics, followed by the main title header "Killing of..." indicating the name of the same victim. Other redirects properly flow to "Murder of..." in cases where a murder conviction has been obtained.

None of those redirects, however, should flow to "Killing of..." because "Killing of..." and "Shooting of..." are mutually exclusive ("Killing of..." indicates death by means other than the use of a firearm, such as in Killing of Eric Garner or Killing of George Floyd) and, to expand the discussion, we can include the container Category:Deaths by firearm in the United States by state which, in addition to listing fatal gun use by police officers, includes firearm deaths caused by civilians, such as in Shooting of Trayvon Martin (redirects to Trayvon Martin) or Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery (redirects to Killing of Ahmaud Arbery). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 11:50, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

This is how these discussion always get distracted. The manner of death is immaterial, and "Killing of..." indicates death by means other than the use of a firearm is a fabricated consistency. I am going to bring this discussion back to Killing of Justine Damond. This white woman was shot and killed. This is clearly a racial bias. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 11:59, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Also, Shooting of Trayvon Martin does NOT redirect to Trayvon Martin. We have not even mentioned Shooting of Philando Castile. There are many others. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 12:04, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

You are of course correct regarding Trayvon Martin. I should have previewed the links — there are indeed two separate articles: Trayvon Martin and Shooting of Trayvon Martin. As for Shooting of Justine Damond, it needs to be listed at WP:RM#Requests to revert undiscussed moves since all of us can see at Killing of Justine Damond: Revision history that it was unilaterally moved to Killing of Justine Damond two days ago despite the fact that there was no consensus for a move to another title at Talk:Killing of Justine Damond#Requested move 3 May 2019. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 12:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems like there may be some logic to the argument that currently "Shooting of..." is the consistent title when the death is a shooting. And yes, the Justine Damond case is a red herring, because it was only moved from "Shooting of..." in the last two days, against previous consensus. I think probably the correct outcome is therefore to move all of the fatal shootings listed at the category above to "Killing of...", to match the cases such as George Floyd where the death wasn't a shooting. And also then amend it further to "Murder of..." if a conviction for that crime is then obtained.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:49, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I did not realize Justine Damond was a recent move. However, there are other examples: Killing of Eyad al-Hallaq is about a Palestinian man who was killed by police (no conviction). Killing of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal is about a Hispanic man who was killed by police (no conviction). Inconsistencies abound. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 13:05, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

The title of Killing of Eyad al-Hallaq was also the result of a recent WP:BOLD move (one month ago). I have reverted it. The inconsistencies do not really about, in my opinion. There are some inconsistencies, but the general pattern is very clear. If we list the articles that fit the pattern instead of listing the exceptions, the list would be ridiculously long. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:42, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Amakuru, a shooting isn't necessarily a death. We should be using shooting only when it's the critical issue. If the person died, it's not the critical issue. —valereee (talk) 13:20, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Here are more examples of inconsistency: Killing of Ronil Singh is about a Fijian-American police officer who was shot and killed (no conviction); Killing of Lizzie O'Neill is about an Irish woman who was shot and killed (found not guilty); Killing of Andres Guardado is about a Hispanic man who was shot and killed by police (no conviction); Killing of Stephen Carroll is about an Irish police officer who was shot and killed (no convictions). It appears, to me at least, that we are only consistent when the killer is a police officer and the deceased is a black person. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 14:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Each such inconsistent header should be nominated for renaming and put to a vote. To save time, these could also be bundled into a single nomination. To put such titles into perspective, the number of English Wikipedia entries delineating non-fatal shootings can be counted on the fingers of two hands (Category:Non-fatal shootings) which includes attempted assassinations.

Fatal shootings, on the other hand (no pun intended), abound. We could rename firearm fatality articles to "Fatal shooting of..." (including accidental shooting deaths) or to "Killing of..." and still retain the ability to sort them via categories. It all depends upon consensus.

As for firearm violence outside the English-speaking world (Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers or Category:Firearm deaths by country), such as the recently-discussed and re-discussed Shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan, these may have to considered on a case-by-case basis since many or possibly most main headers, are listed under the name of the victim, rather than by the description of the event, starting alphabetically with Category:Deaths by firearm in Afghanistan.

Depending on the country, many of the shootings would be under "Assassination of..." while other gun death articles would center upon the killing of an individual protester or of someone whose shooting became a cause celebre. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 14:38, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Roman Spinner, I have suggested "Fatal shooting ..." in the past. It was also rejected as non-CONCISE. If I remember correctly, editors quoted the clause "... but should be no more precise than that" from WP:PRECISION.

Re: having a big discussion: My attempt to do that has devolved into minutiae. People started bring up every what-if they could think of and the discussion eventually led to nothing. Perhaps it was a failing in my part that led to that. I eventually gave up on that because I could not overcome the ENGVAR argument. As someone in that discussion said, We are unlikely, as with many things in WP, to be able to come down to any "one size fits all" solution.

Here, I present you with a simple case. The shooter was found guilty of manslaughter. The location is in the United States. Yet you cling to consistency, as if our policies are prescriptive instead of descriptive. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 15:38, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

C&C, I am grateful for your steadfast advocacy of the form "Kyiv" in an unrelated discussion and would endeavor to arrive at a mutually satisfactory reconciliation between those who feel that "Shooting of..." does not adequately express the deliberate act of killing, especially by police, and those who consider death by gun violence, at the hands of police or civilians, to be a uniquely separate form of killing.

As I indicated, if consensus were to start forming for a mass move of applicable "Shooting of..." headers to either "Fatal shooting of..." or even "Killing of...", I would be glad to join such consensus, but the commingling of "Shooting of..." and "Killing of..." under the same Category:Black people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States or under other related categories, would be counterintuitive. BarrelProof presents strong arguments below in favor of specific applications for differentiating the use of "Shooting of..." from the use of "Killing of..." and consensus needs to develop. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:16, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: A few editors have recently advocated using the "Killing of" title form, but it is clearly not a widely used convention on Wikipedia. There are very few articles about shootings that use "Killing of" – and most of those seem to be very recently created articles. In contrast, there are probably several hundred that use "Shooting of". The proposer has identified some articles that exist that use "Killing of", but this just means that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If we listed all the ones that use "Shooting of", the list would be ridiculously long. The usual convention for articles on Wikipedia that are about deaths by shooting is "Shooting of" (unless they are clearly murder and are called "Murder of"). This is consistent across many articles – see the consistent naming pattern of the large number of articles in Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States, Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Canada, Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Australia, Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Thailand, Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Germany, Category:Deaths by firearm in Iran, and similar categories for most other countries. This has been supported by recent consensus in several RM discussions, including the recent multi-article RMs at Talk:Shooting of Roni Levi, Talk:Shooting of Sammy Yatim , Talk:Shooting of Breonna Taylor, and Talk:Shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, and also single-page RM discussions at Talk:Shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan, Talk:Shooting of Chaiyaphum Pasae, Talk:Shooting of Benno Ohnesorg, and Talk:Shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori. Using "Killing of" has undesirable connotations, whereas "Shooting of" is simple and objective and provides more information (i.e. that a firearm was involved). "Shooting of" typically indicates a fatality, as evident from the very small number of articles in Category:Non-fatal shootings. This has all been discussed elsewhere repeatedly, and moving some particular article from "Shooting of" to "Killing of" is not the right way to try to change the general practice. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:21, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe the recently-created articles being called Killing of is consensus evolving. —valereee (talk) 19:06, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  True, that's exactly how the process can work. This may or may not be the best venue to hold a generalised conversation on whether "Killing of..." or "Shooting of..." is appropriate, but it is a venue and we're here discussing it, and if at the end of it all we determine that "Killing" is much better - which may be the case, given that we already name non-shooting deaths as killings and there's already a WP:CONSISTENCY anomaly there - then that means the rest will likely follow suit. If BarrelProof thinks there are genuine reasons to prefer Shooting over Killing, then let's hear what they are rather than hiding behind some nebulous "convention".  — Amakuru (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  One issue is that "Killing of" tends to imply deliberately setting out to kill, e.g., as may be contrasted with an instinctive action in the midst of a confusing situation. Note that "Killing of X" is not synonymous with "X was killed". See discussion of this at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#Definition of killing. Some examples of definitions of "killing" that were provided by Levivich are: Oxford Learner's: an act of killing somebody deliberately; Cambridge: an occasion when a person is murdered; Collins: A killing is an act of deliberately killing a person. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:54, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  Why are you selectively citing British dictionaries on a RM discussion about an American subject? Are we ignoring WP:TITLEVAR? Levivich also cited American dictionaries that have American Heritage: The act or action of causing death, as of a person.; Merriam-Webster: the act of one that kills ("kills" defined as to deprive of life : cause the death of); Dictionary.com (Random House): the act of a person or thing that kill ("kill" defined as to deprive of life in any manner; cause the death of; slay.) --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 22:42, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

  I am citing dictionaries that illustrate what I believe to be the connotation of that phrasing. If those happen to be British, that is OK with me; Wikipedia has global readership. And perhaps we need to rerun the discussion of the American English dictionary definition provided by MacMillan as well. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  BarrelProof, One issue is that "Killing of" tends to imply deliberately setting out to kill, sez who? —valereee (talk) 02:03, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  For who sez that, I refer to you those four dictionaries that I talked about. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:07, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  But, BP, all of the definitions you're using are non-US, I think? This is a US topic. We need to use US terminology. But more than that, what is the crucial point here? That the person was shot, or that the person is dead? BP, if this was your brother, what would be most important to you? That he was shot, or that he was dead? —valereee (talk) 02:20, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  Not exactly, the fourth one is a dictionary of American English. The entry is found at https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/killing: "an act in which someone is deliberately killed". I haven't done an extensive search about that. However, I also just found https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/killing Definition of killing noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary: "an act of killing someone deliberately" and Collins "killing in American English" (noun): "the act or an instance of murder, destruction, etc." As for what I would want if it was my brother who was shot, Wikipedia would not want me to edit the article in that case, since I would have a WP:conflict of interest. We are not supposed to be here to champion a particular POV or WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Otherwise, we would have a lot of articles with titles like "Brutal completely unjustifiable cold-blooded murder of X". —BarrelProof (talk) 02:36, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  Okay, then: what's more important generally. The person was shot, or the person died. —valereee (talk) 02:52, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  Hmm. I suppose that everybody dies; only a relative few get shot. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:55, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  So if it were your brother, you're saying the most important detail would be that he was shot, not that he was actually dead. —valereee (talk) 02:57, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) That's not what I said. And the morality of a shooting typically does not differ depending on whether the person dies or not, but I guess I get your point. Sorry, but I need to step away now for a while. —BarrelProof (talk) 03:00, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  Valereee, completely agree (and I amended my !vote yesterday with a more detailed rationale which mirrors your comment). I think we would still have this article if he'd died from the beating or the tasing, which suggests that "shooting" isn't what's important here. Of course, if he'd been shot and survived, then "shooting" would probably be the right term (since that was an escalation to lethal force and I hypothesize that most of the controversy would have surrounded the use of a firearm). GeneralNotability (talk) 13:18, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

  We don't have "Beating of" or "Stabbing of" or "Suffocation of" or "Choking of" etc. for people that died in that manner. So it is NOT "Killing of" that is inconsistent, it is "Shooting of" that is inconsistent. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 04:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: See related discussion at Talk:Killing of Lizzie O'Neill. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:55, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support: I'm here because BarrelProof moved Killing of Eyad al-Hallaq to "Shooting of Eyad al-Hallaq". I proposed renaming the article on July 25 and since there was no opposition I renamed it on August 3. BarrelProof renamed it back on September 4, claiming that my renaming was controversial (though no one contested it). I think article titles should be based on what is the most significant part of the topic. In case of people being fatally shot it is that they died, not that they were the victims of shootings. I don't understand the argument that shooting would imply killing. Is that perhaps something specific to American English? Where I'm at, people are regularly shot without being killed. E.g "shooting between rival gangs" which doesn't even imply that someone was shot. Hence why newspapers often use "fatal shooting", "X shot dead", "lethal shooting", etc.

I also think that this debate needs an RfC since it appears intended to set a site-wide precedent. Not enough Wikipedians will find and vote on this talk page. And it would be really good if we could get a clear consensus (or majority opinion) on how articles like these should be named. There is a lot of inconsistency. ImTheIP (talk) 08:39, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

No, article titles are not decided through RFC. The RM process decides that. If this move here goes through, then a multimove can be proposed for the other 118. It seems like consensus might be found for that, since most of the objections are on consistency grounds rather than for any objective reason.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:08, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Amakuru, I actually think that in the very specific case of deaths in police custody/encounters with police we might need a sitewide RfC. This is not IMO a MOS issue. It's a systemic unintentional racism issue. Deaths in police encounters of black people draws tremendous numbers of new editors who are clearly there to push pro-police POVs. I've seen it at multiple articles. The same isn't true of deaths of white people in encounters with the police. I believe these huge numbers of people coming into articles about deaths of blacks in police encounters is causing well-intentioned editors to believe that 'shooting of' is the consensus title even if the person was killed, and that this is what is causing the discrepancy between titles for black people and those for white people. —valereee (talk) 13:26, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@ImTheIP, Amakuru, and Valereee: all of you are essentially right. We need an "RfC" but it does not have to use the RfC process and it shouldn't. A mass RM of all the pages would be much better at advertising the proposal to a wide range of editors. Since it is controversial, it will have to be relisted several times to ensure the consensus is settled. At User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs/Killing, I am gearing up to nominate all these pages in mass as soon as this RM and the other at Killing of Lizzie O'Neill conclude. This would mean the bot will place a template at each page and make sure we decide this once and for all. I am starting with just police shootings in the US since that is the most glaring POV issue, but I do not actually see why we have to limit it to that. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 16:39, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee: Can you please more precisely describe "the discrepancy between titles for black people and those for white people"? I have not noticed such a discrepancy in Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States. As far as I notice, all of the articles in that category that are about the shootings of white people are at "Shooting of" titles. A handful of recent ones about shootings of black and Hispanic people are at "Killing of", but the vast majority of those are also at "Shooting of". Incidentally, as you encouraged, it would be nice if some more people would help contribute to the article about the Shooting of Ryan Whitaker. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:05, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Re: "then a multimove can be proposed for the other 118": There are more than 118 – many more, actually – because some of the people who have been shot were not Black or were not shot in the United States or were not shot by law enforcement officers or were not killed. There are apparently 118 just within Category:Black people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States. Also, I don't see anything wrong with using an RfC to agree about an article title convention. That has been done many times before, and is probably better than WP:RM when a large number of articles is involved. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:49, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support: And it should apply to every similar article. "Shooting" does not adequately describe the subject. It's a killing. Even in cases of justifiable homicide, it is still a killing, not a mere "shooting". Shooting doesn't imply killing or death, and the death of the person who was shot is the most immediately relevant part. I honestly don't even know why this has to be discussed; for cases that aren't considered homicides, "death of" is used. WP Ludicer (talk) 22:56, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support - per nom essentially, and per the argument that fatal shootings should be named "killing of" absent a contrary WP:COMMONNAME. I'm written reams about this already so won't repeat it all here, but also per my arguments about AmEng "killing of" at WT:RM and per my oppose !vote at the concurrent Talk:Killing of Lizzie O'Neill RM. Lev!vich 19:38, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  One other thing: I also agree with a sitewide RFC, and I lean towards it having a broad scope, e.g. all articles about deaths, not just police killings. I think the flowchart (or something like it), if it were to gain sitewide consensus, would be immensely helpful, not just for handling the 100+ existing articles (which could be moved boldly, saving us RMs), but also for new articles. The reality is that there will also be new articles created about notable deaths and as someone who has created a few such articles, I'd find it very helpful to know what the community's consensus is for the naming of those articles, especially upon creation, when it will often be too soon to determine a WP:COMMONNAME. RMs won't draw enough attention, and will frame the dispute as focusing on existing articles (for which there are more often a COMMONNAME) rather than yet-to-be-created articles. Lev!vich 19:45, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support per this, this, this and this. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:26, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support per nom, valereee and Ritchie333. If we have other articles that stray from this convention, we should bring them into compliance with it. "Shooting" does not imply any specific result of the action. If the person was killed, that detail is more fundamental than the mechanism by which they were killed. The article title should reflect that. Armadillopteryx 18:48, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Looking at the categories listed above, it looks like "Shooting of..." is the common title for someone who is Shot. If you want to change all of these, start an RfC. Natureium (talk) 19:16, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support - per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONCISE, WP:CONSISTENCY, common sense and the recent precedent of consensus found at Killing of Rayshard Brooks (specifically in this close). There is no clear reason why we should be only stating in the title the type of weapon used against Greg Gunn, or the last thing to happen to him before he died, when summarizing that he was killed is clearly the more important fact and concise statement. It was found to be a homicide, and ruled in court to be manslaughter. So there’s also no argument to be made here that whether he was killed or not is up for dispute. We simply shouldn’t be leaving room for ambiguity in such articles, and it is clear prior consensus agrees on this. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 13:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support--I'm fine with the move. I called the article "Shooting of..." because it seemed to me that that was conventional on Wikipedia, but I have no problem with "Killing". Wait. He's out on appeal? Sheesh. Irony of ironies: the cop who was convicted of killing an unarmed person can now find common cause with the EJI: "Richardson noted that the Justice Department alleged last year that the violent conditions in Alabama prisons violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. ". Drmies (talk) 15:13, 17 September 2020 (UTC)