Talk:List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, 2012

Listing Date

Should the date listed be the day of death or the day of incident which caused the death? (i.e. James Lamont Green was shot on August 9, 2012; but died August 10, 2012) Suprcel (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I would say definitely the date of the incident. That is how I've been doing it thus far. I think that makes the most sense as this is a list of killings. If a person shoots someone on Monday but they die on Friday, I would say they were "killed" on Monday, not on Friday. But this issue is definitely worth discussing. My stance is, place the killing in the table based on the date of incident, but list the date of death in the description. What do you think? Michellecornelison (talk) 06:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. That is how I added mr. Green's entry, I just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page. Suprcel (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It may even be worthwhile to place an explanation of this in the introduction such as, "Killings are arranged by date of incident, which may not necessarily indicate the date of the person's death." If this seems like a good idea, we could put it in all of the lists' intros. Michellecornelison (talk) 06:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I think a line like that would be helpful to people who might be just be skimming the list looking for a date of death. (not sure about the wording, but I'm unable to think up somehting better) Suprcel (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me know if this is better: "Killings are arrange by date of incident which caused the individual's death. If the death occurred at a later date, that date is listed in the description, if possible." Michellecornelison (talk) 01:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

How about "Killings are arranged by date of incident which caused death. Different death dates are, if possible, noted in the description." I don't think it's necessary to explain that sometimes the death date is different.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I like this one. Suprcel (talk) 15:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Anyone want to plop it in the intros? Michellecornelison (talk) 03:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC) Thank you! Michellecornelison (talk) 04:47, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

List Style

There were a couple of things I wanted to discuss about style in the list. One is: thus far we have typically referenced all citations at the end of the description. I think it is best to keep it this way, even if a citation was only used to find the name. I think having a citation next to the description and next to the name is just a little confusing to look at. Any citation that is added ought to support the description anyway or the description can just be changed or replaced. But I think it would be more uniform and less confusing to keep this streamlined. Another is: when listing cities I think it is best to just choose a city rather than refer to one with a direction, even if that is how it is described in a source. If a more specific city cannot be found, then whatever city is named should be listed. That column is structured so that people can sort the list to see killings from specific cities grouped together. But if it says, for example, "South of Philadelphia" instead of Philadelphia, it won't show up next to the other Philadelphia killings. Again, if an actual specific city name can be found, that should be used. But I think that often when reporters phrase it that way it's just because an incident may have occurred outside of legal city limits (so perhaps not in that city's jurisdiction or something) but still geographically within that city. Any other thoughts on this? Michellecornelison (talk) 05:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

1) Agree, I think most of those came from me, when I started identifying the unnamed. I will move the ref's to the end of the description. Suprcel (talk) 15:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

No problem! I understood your logic, just trying to streamline things. Thanks. Michellecornelison (talk) 02:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

2) But some of these take place not close to a city, but out in the rural countryside. What if we use the county (or county equivalent) to identify the location. The problem with using just the name from the location like (north of Anchorage) is that Newspaper will use the nearest large town to describe a location, not always the nearest town/city/village. (i.e. The Abrahamson shooting took place just outside of Birchwood, AK. to get to Anchorage, you would have to drive through parts of birchwood, then all the way through Eagle River, AK and then you would get to Anchorage.) But I will change the Iowa City report, since the mobile home park where the shooting occured has an Iowa City address. Suprcel (talk) 15:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that if it is clear from a source that the incident happened outside of the city they mention, we should try to look for other sources that will list the actual city where it happened (by actual city, I guess I mean whatever the postal address would be). For the Alaska incident you mentioned, it sounds like Birchwood should be the city listed. Listing counties will mix things up because many states have counties and cities with the same names but in different locations--I know that is definitely true where I live. I think we just need to keep it consistent and list the best city possible to describe the incident. Even if it ends up that a major city is listed for an incident that happened outside that city, it still describes the area where it happened, and if another article can be found that lists the actual city, then someone can edit it to make it more precise. Michellecornelison (talk) 02:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Age?

I notice quite a few descriptions and sources mention the age of the individual. Should we have a column for age, add to the their name, or is that information not needed? thoughts? Suprcel (talk) 17:06, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

My general feeling is that we should have a column for something if it's a variable we'd want to be able to sort by. I don't know if age is such a variable or not, but that's how I think we should decide. What a lot of work it'd be to change all these now!— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That is also why I thought about adding to their name (i.e. "Salgado, Benjamin (29)" ) This way we could slowly back fill the information, without a lot of work all at once of adding a new column to every entry. Suprcel (talk) 20:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with alf laylah wa laylah in that I don't feel that it's a category we would need to sort by. Personally, I usually just try to work it into the description. I'm not totally opposed to the idea of including it with the name, especially if anyone feels like it seems repetitive in the descriptions. I do think age is pertinent information that should be included when the source article mentions it. I think adding age to the name column would be a neat and simple way to do it. The only thing is that it would take a lot of edit time to get everything caught up, but if we all think it would be an improvement then I wouldn't mind helping. More thoughts? Michellecornelison (talk) 02:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I added the age to the name field for the 2012 list (will get to the other list when I have more time). I went though the page and added age information to the individuals that we already had the age data for. I will start working backwords to try and fill in missing age information. Suprcel (talk) 16:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I've worked back to August 5, 2012 (with the exception of 3 unnamed, unknown age) Suprcel (talk) 17:17, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources? A joke?

Are we sure the sources are reliable? When I used ctrl+F to find the word "witness," nearly every time they're there, they disagree with the story of of heroic police defeating homicidal people. And in the cases without witnesses, the sources always say the attack is justified. So just what kind of sources are we using? Even sources supporting conspiracy theories are afraid to make such indefensible claims. (I'm ONLY talking about shootings at private areas, or some place far from a sidewalk or store, because witnesses in public areas would not be mentioned w/o disagreeing). 24.85.161.72 (talk) 21:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

On Wikipedia "reliable sources" is a technical term, defined here: WP:RS. I'm not sure I understand your concern, but maybe you'll find an answer there.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:50, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, search for "witness" on this page yourself. (use ctrl+F) Whenever witnesses are there, it's always "shot while running away," or "shot even though unarmed," and when they're not present, it's "after opening fire on all the officers and saying "shoot me," he was shot."

(ignore shootings in very public places) 24.85.161.72 (talk) 21:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

And also, using police sources for police shootings is like asking Obama to rewrite the article on Obama-Care. 24.85.161.72 (talk) 22:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, well, what are we supposed to do? The ones where it's not found to be justified are collected in the various lists of police brutality. These pages just keep track of all killings without regard to whether or not they're justified. It seems worth having.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 22:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to just notify editors through the talk page that the sources need to be re-looked because they're have ridiculously odd patterns. 24.85.161.72 (talk) 22:39, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry about sounding like I want this list removed or to remove people from the list! It indeed is worth having, but with improved sources. 24.85.161.72 (talk) 22:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)