Talk:When the looting starts, the shooting starts

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This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Harrison, Stephen (June 9, 2020). "How Wikipedia Became a Battleground for Racial Justice". Slate.

A fact from When the looting starts, the shooting starts appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 June 2020 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the phrase "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" was first used by a Miami police chief who told the press in 1967 that they "don't mind being accused of police brutality"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2020/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/When the looting starts, the shooting starts.

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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 Coffeeandcrumbs (talk) 09:51, 19 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

... that the first use of the phrase "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" was by a Miami police chief who told press in 1967 that "we don't mind being accused of police brutality"? Source: [1][2]
- ALT1:... that the first use of the phrase "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" was by a Miami police chief who argued in 1967 that only way to handle looters and arsonists was to shoot them on sight? Source: "There is only one way to handle looters and arsonists during a riot and that is to shoot them on sight. I've let the word filter down: When the looting starts the shooting starts."[3]

Created by Fuzheado (talk) and Oceanflynn (talk). Nominated by Sdkb (talk) at 00:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Likely point of contention is neutrality, and more opinions are welcome. It has a mix of contemporary and historical sources, provides enough information to place the phrase in its historical context, and addresses controversies and responses. Most statements are attributed and not stated in encyclopedic voice which helps NPOV as well, so it seems neutral to me. Sourced, long enough, checked a few sources and didn't see copyvios, hook cited. I prefer alt0 since it's shorter and essentially says the same thing, but either is fine. First nomination by Sdkb according to the QPQ check so none needed. — Wug·a·po·des 19:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What did Headley actually say, and when did he say it?

The full quote that was used in the article's quotebox before was "There is only one way to handle looters and arsonists during a riot and that is to shoot them on sight. I've let the word filter down: When the looting starts the shooting starts." – this was attributed to Headley's press conference of December 26, 1967.

This is an interesting construction, as none of the contemporaneous sources for the press conference support this quote in those exact words:

[4] AP article published in Standard-Speaker (open access), 27 Dec 1967
[5] same AP article published in Santa Cruz Sentinel, 27 Dec 1967

Therefore, I've moved Chief Headley's words from this AP article into the quotebox nearly in full aside from the crime statistics (58 violent crimes).

It appears the previous quote was used for the first time in Headley's obituary dated November 17, 1968 in the Miami Herald: [6], echoed in the November 29, 1970 New York Times article: [7]. It may be true that Chief Headley stated this in August 1968 in response to the Miami riots, but a contemporaneous source [8] only quotes Headley in 1968 as saying "My officers know what to do. They can handle the situation." The "looting–shooting" phrase is quoted in the prior paragraph, but explicitly as a statement he had made in the December 1967 press conference, and not in connection with the August riots.

Cheers, Mliu92 (talk) 19:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Section on Facebook's Response

I'm not sure if it's appropriate for the "Facebook's Response" section to be in this article. It goes into depth on Facebook's actions in trying to keep unity amongst its workers, including virtual walkouts and resignations, and goes beyond the scope of this article. It also links to larger recent criticism of Facebook and their handling of social media posts by politicians which incite violence (like this).

Hence, I think it should be moved, perhaps into Criticism of Facebook. This article should just contain a sentence or two on how Facebook decided not to remove the comment. ProcrasinatingReader (talk) 14:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the concern, and have added context from the original usage in 1967 to better explain why there's a small section on Facebook here. Refer to the Miami Report (1969) which is also referenced in the article; it's actually rather short. The relevant sections worth reading are the first chapter ("The Local Background", pages 1-5), tenth chapter ("General Observations", starting on page 25), and the reproduced news articles from The Miami Herald in the Appendices.

The relevance is (in my mind) the process and decision by Zuckerberg to read the phrase literally rather than in the context of its original use by Chief Headley and the actual history that ensued. After Headley made the statement in Dec 1967, and blamed it on both civil rights and the failure of community policing efforts, his officers were emboldened to flat-out harass black people in public, which in turn directly led to rising tensions and the riots (and deaths) in August 1968. It is rather disingenuous for Zuckerberg to insist that a narrow, literal reading of the phrase as simply an advocacy of aggressive police work when a detailed analysis like the Miami Report shows the actual consequences of the policy. That's all WP:OR on my part, though, and that's why the article still needs work to source analyses to support why the Facebook section belongs. Cheers, Mliu92 (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One section on Headley, another heading on similar contemporary statements and policies

The quote is actually only from Headley, I'd suggest to not have a separate top-level section on all of the other 1967/8 individuals, but instead to have a common heading about them and how this reflected the overall national situation. Also we should add, from Frank Rizzo in the same timeframe: "They take your attempts to meet their demands as a sign of weakness; you have to meet them with absolute force."--Pharos (talk) 00:11, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Pharos: I found the source of the Rizzo quote and added it to the article. Cheers, Mliu92 (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Press mention of Wikipedia article

https://slate.com/technology/2020/06/wikipedia-george-floyd-neutrality.html

---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:37, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coined

The use of "coined" in the summary box is consistent with the Headley quote. However, Trump repeated the phrase; he did not coin it. "Coin" means to originate, not repeat. Including Trump under that head, in addition to using "coin" incorrectly, implies that only two people have used the phrase. It also could be perceived as bias. Stealthmouse (talk) 09:15, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This belongs on wikiquotes

This article has as much merit as creating an article titled “With Jews, You Lose” Please nominate this low quality wikipedia article for deletion and keep quotes undeserving of a wikipedia page on wikiquotes instead 45.58.95.177 (talk) 19:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ron DeSantis using the quote

Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis has used the quote for Hurricane Idalia, (see here: [9]) should this be included in the article? Therapyisgood (talk) 20:47, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]