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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mantion (talk | contribs) at 09:38, 23 March 2017 (→‎Title? (Unrest vs. Riots)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Stop white washing this article. Include photos of Ferguson burning after the verdict.

It's obvious which way this article leans. If a photo of a cop with a gun pointing at the camera can be included, so should photos of the rioters. I've seen the video of the police officer photographed. That occurred very quickly, within 2 seconds, another officer grabbed him and straightened him out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:E:9080:1C8:B5B0:33CD:7387:A6A1 (talk) 00:32, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Tshuva (talk) 07:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The interesting thing about these articles is that half the people think it leans one way and the other half think it leans another way. Looking here, I'm not seeing much in the way of "burning" photos. It might be helpful to mention specific images available to us and specific locations in the article rather than just a generic statement of disapproval. – JBarta (talk) 09:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ferguson+burning&FORM=HDRSC2 There are hundreds to choose from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:345:4201:9491:D90F:4CBB:D691:885E (talk) 00:49, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These are images from non-free sources. If you want photos included these need to be on the public domain. If you can find any such, please post here some links. - Cwobeel (talk) 01:00, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But are the images still free when people crop them from other non-free sources? Heyyouoverthere (talk) 06:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Reactions" section

The section should be in prose. I don't like the encouragement of bulleting the list. --George Ho (talk) 19:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree with George Ho's addition of a prose tag to the Reactions section. In prose, this would essentially be the same list, but using blank lines instead of bullets for delimiters. This would result in a long series of short paragraphs, many of them just one sentence. I think the bullets work better for this purpose. I was tempted to revert per WP:BRD, but I'm not in a reverting mood today.
Me, I'm a lot more concerned about the clear misuse of flags in International reactions, per MOS:FLAG. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Removed the flags per MOS:FLAG. Still thinking about the prose tag. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2 officers shot in front of Ferguson PD, March 12


  • Eligon, John (March 12, 2015). "2 Officers Are Shot Outside Ferguson Police Station". The New York Times.

--Jeremyb (talk) 11:56, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Is this going to be incorporated at all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.71.30.14 (talk) 20:15, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Already has been, here. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I missed it.

Rename Article to 2014-2015 Ferguson Unrest

As they currently cannot do so, @ShadowHawk555 has asked me to post this on their behalf. Should the article be renamed to include 2015 due to the recent sniper incident? - Amaury (talk) 21:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

High-profile news will continue in Ferguson for years if not decades. It is the new poster boy city for police racism issues. This non-fatal shooting would have gotten far less news coverage if it had happened in Decatur, Georgia, and not enough to justify a mention in any Wikipedia article. I'd be more amenable to renaming it to "Ferguson unrest", or just leaving it alone. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:35, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The sniper incident is definitely a bad reason - there's really no evidence connecting it to anything else, e.g. the protesters. For all we know now, an unusually bright ISIS sympathizer hit on it as a way to drum up discord. It is clear that protests are ongoing - I'm not so sure about "civil disorder". The article lumps together these two things under the very vague description of "unrest", but which is the real headliner? Should this be about the 2014 Ferguson disorder, or even the 2014 Ferguson riots, focusing mainly on the significant criminal actions, or should it focus on the 2014-2015 Ferguson protests, to which this is only marginally relevant? I would lean toward the latter. Wnt (talk) 22:36, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I think the rational first priority in general here might be a History of Ferguson, Missouri, article. It could include sections on both the shooting and the 2014 events, or maybe a single section on both. I think it can probably be argued that WorldCat contains enough entries related to that topic to indicate its notability, and it would be a good springboard for material on this incident, and any aftermath it might have, and, well, anything else in the future related to the city. John Carter (talk) 23:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Per Mandruss, leave it alone or rename to "Ferguson unrest". - Cwobeel (talk) 17:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Ferguson unrest" seems like a good choice, even if the article pertained strictly to events that occurred in 2014. Unless and until we have an article about unrelated unrest in Ferguson, there's no need to append a year (or years) for disambiguation. —David Levy 17:39, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, we can easily move this again if a future event with no connection to Trayvon Martin happens.--67.68.31.204 (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 13 March 2015

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 09:36, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2014 Ferguson unrest → Ferguson unrest – Because of recent article-worthy events, it was proposed in a thread on this page to change "2014" to "2014—2015". To date, three users have proposed removing the year instead, which is enough to justify this request for move. Feel free to add to the earlier discussion, but please limit your participation here to a Support or Oppose !vote on "Ferguson unrest", with your argument of course. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Ferguson Unrest?

Maybe we should change the 1992 LA riots to LA unrest and there was a video of that Ferguson made no sense at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.210.109.162 (talk) 07:47, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Title? (Unrest vs. Riots)

Sorry if this seems like a silly question, but why is this article labelled the "Ferguson unrest," rather than "Ferguson riots"? – Zumoarirodoka (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Zumoarirodoka: Because it covers more than riots, and riots are included in the definition of the word "unrest". You'll find multiple similar discussions in the archives of this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:17, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the clarification! – Zumoarirodoka (talk) 20:19, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Despite that, I feel the name still could use some work. Maybe 'Ferguson unrest following shooting of Michael Brown'? Or maybe some wordsmith can come up with something better. ― Padenton|✉   20:30, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm a fair wordsmith and I can't think of anything better. Guidelines say we needn't qualify it unless it's ambiguous in its current form. Is there something else that could be called Ferguson unrest? ―Mandruss ☎ 20:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


So odd?????? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_riot_of_1968 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Chicago_riots — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.251.239 (talk) 02:22, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are thousands of protests across the country every day if not more. Yes there were related protest in Ferguson, I imagine someone was protesting something in Ferguson every day for the last 10 yes. These "unrests" were noteworthy because of the criminal riots. I guess we can include protest activity, but those were not note worthy. If there was an article about a bank robbery you would not go out of your way to point out people made legal withdrawals from the bank that day. Its safe to say people will try to excuse and justify violence as a "protest" and that should be insulting to anyone engaged in peaceful protests.Mantion (talk) 09:36, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"while family members and others said Meyers was only holding a sandwich"

I decided to take a look at this article and the very first item I checked was an egregious instance of source misrepresentation. This edit was problematic in a number of ways. First, there aren't any "others" who said Myers was only holding a sandwich, and there weren't even multiple family members. There was one man, who did not even witness the shooting, who claimed to be a cousin of Myers and of Michael Brown, who also did not bother explaining how he could know this without having been there, and even helpfully added that maybe the police planted a gun, or something.

Making multiple exaggerations of what the source says is a problem all by itself, as is giving weight to this questionable witness statement; and use of a sentence structure that makes it sound like there are actual competing versions of events, is an additional problem. Looking at the edit history reveals this was added by Gaijin42 (talk · contribs) just about 2 weeks after the incident, apparently in a WP:NOTNEWS frenzy of getting the WP:TRUTH out, he never bothered to fact-check himself, and in the intervening seven months nobody bothered to correct it.

Great job, y'all. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 12:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good fix. Maybe back down from the soap box a bit. Gaijin42 (talk) 14:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Can I safely assume that all of your subsequent edits to this article were undertaken with a much greater degree of care than this one was? Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 14:45, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Centrify your "correction" only made things worse: you introduced the weasel word "claim", casting editorial doubt on the Hollis' statement. You also ignored source text that contradicts your changes:
"Myers' family and friends insist he did not have a gun… Berhe Beyene, who works at the market, said he sold Myers a $2.99 sandwich moments before the teen died… Hollis and several family members stood inside Shaw Market watching video from the store's surveillance cameras showing the last moments of Myers' life…"
So, Hollis did witness the event via security footage. Your edit implies that he didn't and that we should believe Hollis is lying about Myers being unarmed. -Darouet (talk) 17:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Of course Hollis did not witness the incident, as the source said and as you just confirmed for yourself. Afterwards, he saw a video of the guy buying a sandwich. I'm not sure why I need to explain to you how different those two things are.
Anyway it's questionable whether this claim should be included at all, but if it is included, it should be given the proper weight — i.e. practically none at all. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 18:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The barely-believable and not-really-reported claim should be described as a claim or not included at all.
So you stand by your weasel-word, and maintain that Hollis, who saw a video of the incident, did not witness it. You also haven't addressed the fact that your edit to the article obscures the source, making it seem as though only Hollis said Myer was unarmed. -Darouet (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Look pal, the source explicitly says he did not witness it. The exact words refer to him as "Doug Hollis of St. Louis, who did not witness the shooting." Also, "weasel wording" refers to the tricky use of language to elevate a vague or unsupported statement so that it sounds like a serious claim. That's the opposite of what's being done here, which is to use language in a straightforward way to indicate that a statement actually lacks any support. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 14:03, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"International reactions"

Currently this section is larded up with deflections from the likes of China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, all essentially saying Please don't any attention to the things the U.S. says about our alleged war crimes and human rights abuses, the U.S. is waaaay worse than us!

I mean there's even an extensive froth of vitriol from North Korea; I QUOTE: "North Korea - called the United States a "human rights graveyard," the "laughingstock of the world," and "a country wantonly violating the human rights where people are subject to discrimination and humiliation due to their race and are seized with such horror that they do not know when they are [going to be] shot to death."

This is all frank BS, why is it in the article? Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 14:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear why you think the views of other countries are wholly spurious on an international encyclopedia. -Darouet (talk) 17:27, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what I said, pal. Re-read and let me know if you have any other questions. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 18:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You've only objected to specific text from North Korea, on the grounds that you think it is BS. Apparently the North Koreans don't feel that way, and I think their views are more important than you, a random person on the internet. Let us know if you have any other specific concerns. -Darouet (talk) 18:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I take it you're not aware that North Korean state media is controlled by totalitarian government censors? It has little to do with how "the North Koreans" feel about any given subject. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 13:58, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
North Korea is a dictatorship - like almost every country in the Middle East, including plenty of U.S. allies. I'm not sure what your point is - their positions are still notable. -Darouet (talk) 22:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
e.g., that North Korean state propaganda arguably merits only a tiny little bit of weight, if any, but currently it's being given a lot. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 23:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the undue weight you describe. We have a sentence or two for each country. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:14, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Ferguson PR sub-contractor fired" subsection

Isn't this of only passing relevance to the article subject in the first place? Isn't the fired contractor a BLP1E whom we should think twice about mentioning? Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 15:07, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

BLP1E doesn't really apply, since the article is not about him, but I'd be fine with anonymizing it more (and merging to elsewhere in the article rather than a section?), or perhaps even removing all together under the WP:10YT Gaijin42 (talk) 15:13, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The guy received practically no coverage at all, and IMHO he doesn't belong in this article. Yes, although BLP1E explicitly refers to having stand-alone articles about otherwise non-notable people, but it's an extension of WP:Notability which does challenge us to consider whether any material at all about a particular living person belongs on WP.
In any event the current prose gives a very pushy description, calls the guy "a minority" and dwells pretty extensively on his criminal history and how its revelation led to his firing. It really has practically nothing to do with the Ferguson unrest. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username) (talk) (contribs) 18:04, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A short mention can be added when describing Jackson video, but I agree that there is no need for a long section on this individual. - Cwobeel (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Connection to Liu/Ramos murders

Seems worth mentioning these two murders which were widely reported as inspired by Ferguson protests and/or allegedly committed as revenge for the killing of Michael Brown. Correct stuff thats wrong (talk) 15:40, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

DOJ After Action report Injury Total

http://www.stltoday.com/online/doj-s-ferguson-after-action-report/pdf_d2a40881-df39-558c-8b7e-e54cc2906aa7.html

Contained here on PG 110 of the DOJ's After Action Assessment (PG 134 of PDF), 39 officers were injured in Ferguson between august 9th and august 25th of 2014 alone. A far cry more than the 6 currently listed on the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.91.189.6 (talk) 08:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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A Critique of the Article

While I believe this event was a horrific tragedy, one must not lose sight of the fact that this article should not be implicitly infused with bias. For one, the sources of the article are questionable to say the least; this is clearly seen when examining notes 84, 85, and 90. These sources are not credible sources, especially when considering the information they are being used to convey. In fact, these references appear to be trying to paint the police officers involved in a negative light. In general, I would also question whether or not this article is in fact the neutral source it is intended to be. I say this because nearly all of the sources used in this article are from online newspapers or media sites that appear to be presenting information with a certain political agenda. Many of the sources used are from more liberal media outlets such as CNN and the Huffington Post. While obviously it would be unwise/unfair to discredit all of the information from these sources, I think the article would gain more credibility if the article included sources from across the entire ideological spectrum - if not from more independent and credible sources. Also, one could look into obtaining the police reports from the incidents (both the rioting and shooting) as well as any credible eye witness testimonies regarding the shooting. This would paint a clearer picture of what might have happened on the day of the shooting; furthermore, it could shed light on any inconsistencies regarding the incident. Ultimately, finding these inconsistencies through credible sources is crucial to understanding what exactly happened in Ferguson and explaining the subsequent unrest stemming from the shooting.

In addition to the article lacking both credible and independent resources, the article seems to offer extensive information on only the actions of the police officers; there is little coverage over the actions of the protesters. Instead, there are very brief sections that discuss looting. If the article is going to cover the misconduct of the police officers it should also cover the conduct of the protesters, as well as the actions that perhaps provoked the misconduct from the police officers. After all, some of the protesters were acting in a way that was not conducive to getting their point across. As we all understand, the unwarranted death of any individual is, indeed, a tragedy. However, this does not justify some of the actions that were taken by a few protesters - if anything, it only made matters worse at such a divisive time. Nonetheless, the actions of the protesters (both peaceful and hostile) should be more thoroughly covered in this story. This way people will know that the article is presenting the incident in a truly neutral light, and thus, make come to their own conscientious conclusion on the matter.Newton3254 (talk) 02:50, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Also, one could look into obtaining the police reports from the incidents"

I am afraid that this would count as a primary source, and in Wikipedia these are regarded with suspicion. Per the relevant policy: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." Dimadick (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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