Talk:Assault of Dafonte Miller

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Magnolia677: Please point me to a policy or guideline that says notability is a criterion for including commentary within an article, not merely the criterion for including an article simpliciter. AFAICS, reporting on how an event was discussed in an academic journal is a perfectly legitimate use of a "response" section. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 17:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: The author of the source is not notable, and the journal cited--TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies--is also not notable. Moreover, the article does not mention race, yet a source has been cherrypicked so that "police violence" against "racialized people" can be introduced into the article. A quick glance at TOPIA shows it is a biased, far-left publication, with nothing to support "editorial control" or "a reputation for fact-checking,", per WP:BIASED. This source also adds WP:UNDUE weight to the article. No doubt Rebel News also has an opinion about this topic, but that does not mean it should be used as a source. Magnolia677 (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Magnolia677, The journal is published by University of Toronto Press and is peer-reviewed. That strikes me as very strong evidence of having a reputation for fact-checking and editorial control. You have also not provided any policy or guideline to indicate that notability of the author or journal is a criterion for inclusion of a source, as opposed to inclusion of an article. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:45, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: You cherrypicked a non-notable source and author, which added undue and inappropriate weight to the article. My response referred to policy. Let's wait for other editors to comment. Magnolia677 (talk) 19:22, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Magnolia677, You accuse me of disruptive editing and yet make inconsistent arguments to defend your own edits. Per this, being the head of a lawyers' association does not confer notability by any of our notability criteria (which, I take it, would be WP:BIO/WP:GNG in this context). And yet you claim that notability of a person is a necessary criterion for adding a quotation to the article's response section. Why is my academic source cherrypicking and your source indisputably legitimate? Either both quotes should stay or neither of them should, if notability of the source is (as you claim, again without a policy or guideline to defend your view) a criterion for adding a passage to an article.

The two other quotes, one from The Globe and Mail and the other from Jagmeet Singh, are clearly from notable sources, so they should, by your lights, be the only ones included. Moreover, as I recall you removed a quote from Desmond Cole a few months ago. Why does a quote from that notable subject fail to pass muster, and yet the quote from Struthers does?

What's more, and more importantly, it's not even clear that the quotation you want to keep in the article provides any useful context. It's rather difficult for me to fathom what the really critical thing to remember is that we cannot expect any specific case to be guided by, influenced by or poisoned by the current political climate even means, or how it's supposed to help our readers. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 00:49, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: You make a good point, and after examining the entire "response" section I think most of it should be removed. Editors can easily cherrypick any opinion they want, and this seems to have happened. Including an opinion piece from The Globe and Mail is just that...opinion, and encyclopedias do not peddle opinion. Both WP:BIASED and WP:UNDUE offer some guidance, though I have been unable to find a policy or previous consensus regarding "whose opinion matters and whose opinion does not" with regard to a controversial crime. I would say leading government officials should have their opinions included. I will post this on various Wikiprojects to get more input. To summarize, the following have at one point been included in the response section:

• The opinion of John Struthers, president of Ontario's Criminal Lawyers' Association (still in article).
• This opinion published in The Globe and Mail. (still in article)
• The opinion of Jagmeet Singh, a Canadian politician. (still in article)
• This opinion by activist Desmond Cole.
• This opinion by Sharlee Cranston-Reimer, published in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:58, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings:, @Magnolia677: Throwing my hat into the ring, it appears a good governing rule would be to include response as it pertains to officials or official bodies that relate to the matter. So if the Toronto Police Service opines, that would be included. Peel or Toronto municipalities? Included. Even the Toronto Police Association (the police union) would have an opinion that seems to fit. This counts for both the bodies or the heads of them. While all of these bodies have their own politic, they're arguably only one or two degrees away from the primary actors in this event and thus reasonably fit in the article.

Personally I'd assume anyone who has notability and an opinion to be fair game for inclusion, but understand there appears to be stricter policies on what is included. Ultimately this event didn't happen in a vacuum and is a symbolic, political issue to many, that many will have opinions on, and that's partly why this event is notable in the first place. —f3ndot ^{(TALK) (EMAIL)} 23:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Missing Important Elements

This is a complex incident with many moving pieces, some of which are still evolving. The article is lacking in my view, and may require some general restructuring to better capture all notable events and developments in a cohesive manner:

• There is still a civil lawsuit action via Miller's legal counsel, parallel to the criminal trial
• The criminal trial is appealed by both the Crown and the defendant
• At the time of the assault, Theriault’s father, John Theriault, was a detective with the Toronto police’s professional standards unit, which reviews police conduct.
• An Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) investigative report was conducted and released regarding the incident, making several notable findings.
• The OIPRD report, and the timing of the TPS' apology relative to the report's release. Miller and his counsel asserts "cover-up" and a PR stunt
• The fact the OIPRD report was not publicly released by the TPS citing privacy concerns, but was then released in full by Miller's legal counsel
• The fact that the OIPRD report concludes that the statutory obligation to notify the SIU makes no distinction between on- and off- duty. This appears to be contrary information to policy that was changed by interim Chief Ramer.

The Miller's legal counsel issued a press release/website page regarding the OIPRD. While this is obviously a biased source, it conveniently links to at least eight reputable news sources regarding the matter. I think trawling through the news articles should be sufficient to assemble a well cited statement of facts around the OIPRD.

It would be great if there are editors who are more comfortable than I to include these elements (assuming citations sufficiently support them). —f3ndot ^{(TALK) (EMAIL)} 17:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

References