Talk:Ibragim Todashev

Renaming

First of this article should be retitled "Shooting of Ibragim Todashev" or "Death of..." in line with standard wiki practice as he is not notable aside from this shooting. --Bellerophon5685 (talk) 03:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, you've done that already. I raised the question of whether the name of the article should be merely Todashev's name on the relevant Talk page. Thank you for applying the relevant Wiki policy to this article. – Herzen (talk) 04:46, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the renaming. He is not known just for dying, so this is not a case of WP:BIO1E. Even if he was not killed, he would be notable for being blamed for the 2011 Waltham murders and being an associate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Arguably, the murders and the association with the alleged bomber are more notable than being killed during their investigation. Titling the article as "Death of Ibragim Todashev" makes it seem like the 2011 Waltham murders somehow don't matter. They were very brutal killings - at least as significant as the killing of Todashev. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:23, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

My inclination at this point is to wait and see if the government keeps up its allegation that Todashev was involved in the Waltham killings. And I don't see how it can get very far with that, because it killed both of the alleged perpetrators before it got confessions from either of them. Being associated with Tamerlan Tsarnaev is not notable in itself. I don't care what this article is called, so long as it continues to exist. – Herzen (talk) 05:43, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Killing or shooting better if that becomes focus. Death is too general. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 12:57, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree, as I do habitually in such cases, that death is too general (and needlessly so, at that), and we should go with one of Carol's suggestions.--Epeefleche (talk) 18:07, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking of precedents such as Shooting of Trayvon Martin or Death of Caylee Anthony - when the person is non-notable but the incident of their killing is. We do not know at this point what his connection to the Waltham murders was, if he was connected to them at all.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 18:19, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, this should be moved back to Death of... As it stands, the article is almost entirely about his death and the resulting controversy, and that event has been the source of almost all, if not all, of the media coverage he has received. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:14, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Like I said above, I don't really care what the article is called, just as long as it doesn't get deleted, but what harm is done by calling it "Ibragim Todashev" instead of "Death of Ibragim Todashev", even though he wouldn't be notable if the FBI hadn't killed him? No confusion is caused by using the shorter, simpler title. It's as if some Wikipedians think that getting an article named after you is some sort of prize, so one should be stingy with having articles that are simply named after a person.

Shooting of Trayvon Martin isn't a good example, since as far as I can tell, naming the article that was a way of avoiding having an article named "George Zimmerman". Also, the present case is more complicated than a simple shooting, which is what happened to Martin. According to reports, Todashev was interviewed by the FBI two previous times before his final interview. Thus, in my view, calling the article "Death of I.T." or "Shooting of T.D." (which is better, as has been noted above) is more confusing than keeping the article's name as it is. Even if Todashev was not involved in the Waltham murders (and I doubt that he was), the FBI alleging that he was makes him notable, especially since his alleged conspirator was one of the Boston Marathon bombers. – Herzen (talk) 23:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that simply being alleged to be linked to a murder qualifies him as notable. Granted these issues - the Waltham murders and the previous interviews are important background to a notable event (ie his death), but they do not make Ibragim Todashev a notable figure per se.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 01:28, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Are there any official Wiki guidelines for cases like these? I'm afraid I'm not well versed in the specifics of Wiki rules: I just tend to proceed on what I consider to be common sense and good manners when it comes to my activity at Wikipedia. Also, I tend to be conservative: I didn't mind when this article got renamed from "Ibragim Todashev" to "Death of Ibragim Todashev", but I didn't mind when the article got named back to the original name, either. My inclination, when it comes to how an article should be named, is to stick to whatever the current name is, unless a clear consensus in the article's Talk page can be obtained to rename the article. And I think that article names should be kept as simple as possible. Naming the article after the person who got killed, instead of explicitly specifying in the title that the article is about his death, is simpler. Also, when the article is about someone who is notable for getting killed under questionable circumstances, when that person made decisions that apparently contributed to his death (cooperating with the FBI in this case), to name the article "Death of X" instead of simply naming it after X is to dehumanize X, as far as I can tell. I don't think that Wikipedia should be in the business of dehumanizing people. – Herzen (talk) 06:33, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think wikipedia should dehumanize people either, but the rule of thumb that has developed among wikipedians over the years is that people such as Caylee Anthony and Trayvon Martin are not notable subjects for an article by themselves, hence if you click on their names you will be redirected. This is sad, but on the other hand this type of strict notability standard prevents people like Adam Lanza, Jodie Arias , Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman from getting their own personal pages.--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 00:00, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

This is the relevant WP Wikipedia:Notable_people#Crime_victims_and_perpetrators--Bellerophon5685 (talk) 00:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Photo

Slate has a photo of Tsarnaev that is described as "courtesy of the Orange County Corrections Department". Can we import that into Commons and use it? – Herzen (talk) 04:46, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

That's a photo of Todashev, not Tsarnaev. I think it is probably OK to use, since it was produced by the government, but I don't know for sure. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:28, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I meant Todashev. Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable about Wikipedia intellectual property policy and/or how states release mug shots than we are will chime in. – Herzen (talk) 05:34, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Photos produced by the Federal government are in the public domain, but material produced by state and local governments are not. Therefore the image cannot be imported into commons. However, if someone wants to upload it to wikipedia as non-free content and use it in this article, I think that would be acceptable per the Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. Since the subject of the photo is deceased, obtaining a free equivalent would be impossible.GabrielF (talk) 13:56, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Photo has been added with this edit. – Herzen (talk) 23:32, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Category

I don't have a strong view on this, at this point. But it is not completely clear that this article should be in the cat (as it is now) "Unarmed people shot by police", as it is not clear that he was unarmed. Unarmed means "lacking weapons". But it appears that the earliest and the latest reports were that he was armed with (and using as a weapon) a pole or table or something else using them as a weapon. Some reports, in the middle, do suggest that he may have been unarmed, and that of course is the accusation by some connected to the decedent.Epeefleche (talk) 18:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, since reports started saying that Todashev was unarmed, there has been only one report, which quotes only a single anonymous official, that says that Todashev used a table and a metal pole or broomstick to attack the FBI agent. (Our article was updated to mention that NY Times report.) In any case, it is not clear that any of those three is a weapon in the relevant sense of the word. Initial reports said that a knife was used, but that version of the story has apparently disappeared for good.

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not on statements made by anonymous officials as reported by a journalist without making a single direct quote of the official, who as far as we know, may not even be directly involved in the investigation of the shooting. And reliable sources, such as journalists at the Atlantic and the Nation, are responding to the latest version related by the NY Times with a great deal of skepticism. – Herzen (talk) 22:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

An object with which one person attacks another is generally considered a weapon. And yes -- wp is indeed based on RSs. That relates to the newspaper, magazine, etc. If an RS reports that an anonymous source -- but one the RS chose to report -- said "x", that is RS coverage of an anonymous source, and reportable as such. Your suggestion that an RS report on what an official -- unnamed -- said is not something WP reflects is wrong -- it certainly does, as such. It is not the official that is the RS, but the media reporting what the official said. Similarly, your suggestion that a direct quote is needed is not based on any rule or guidelines -- nothing of the sort is required at all, and we don't just make up requirements.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:44, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I added the latest official story to the article as soon as I saw it. But just because the latest version of events—which at present has only been conveyed once by an official to the media—claims that some household items were used as "weapons", that doesn't mean that this article should be removed from "Unarmed people shot by police", which is what you proposed when you started this thread. – Herzen (talk) 22:58, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

What I wrote when I started this thread was: "I don't have a strong view on this, at this point. But it is not completely clear that this article should be in the cat (as it is now) "Unarmed people shot by police", as it is not clear that he was unarmed."--Epeefleche (talk) 00:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above proved inconclusive, but then a user summarily removed the relevant category from the article anyway in this edit. An article from yesterday notes that "Last week, FBI sources said Todashev was unarmed when he was shot and killed by an FBI agent". The preponderance of reports seems indeed to indicate that Todashev was unarmed. After the FBI started saying he was unarmed, only one report came out to the contrary—the NY Times report indirectly quoting one unnamed official saying that Todashev had a metal pipe or a broomstick. No one else picked up or confirmed that version. So I think the category "Unarmed people shot by police" should be put back in the article. Any objections? – Herzen (talk) 19:19, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The article was bad, now I made it better

It still lacks more details of his life (the section that was hilariously misnamed "background"), especially about his MMA career, his training with Tamerlan, the parking lot fight & arrest incident, what exactly was he studying, etc. --Niemti (talk) 11:06, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

And the next section needs any info about his MMA training relations with the bombing suspect, prior questionings, him canceling a flight to Chechnya as requested by the FBI, his friends talking about his "bad feelings about it", etc. --Niemti (talk) 07:40, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for improving the article.

There's an "expansion required" tag under "Questioning and death". The FBI is doing an internal investigation of the shooting, which is going to last at least a month, and they are unlikely to reveal very much more while it is going on. (The only reason that they came up with their latest version of events—Todashev was wielding a metal pole or possibly a broomstick—is that photos showing Todashev was shot seven times came out, and there was an outcry about that, as our article indicates.

But you're right that some details that could be added at this point. Another besides the ones you mention is that there were reports that Tadashev's friend Khusen Taramov and Todashev's wife told reporters that Todashev had told them that he was only questioned about the Marathon bombings. Other than that, I can't think of anything that could be added to this section. Until there is another leak, it doesn't look like we're going to learn anything new. – Herzen (talk) 19:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

There were also lots of conflicting accounts ("It is difficult to understand how, having shot the man dead, the multiple law enforcement personnel on scene could've gotten the details wrong. Discrepancies can creep into an account of a stressful situation. But how can there possibly be confusion about whether the suspect was a) wielding a knife, per the original story; b) unarmed, per subsequent versions; c) or lunging with or toward a samurai sword? We're supposed to believe that multiple law enforcement personnel went to a man's apartment, confirmed via his own confession that he participated in a triple murder with an alleged terrorist, and still left him within reach of a samurai sword? And that, after he lunged toward one agent with the sword, or else lunged toward the sword, or an officer's gun, or something, there was so much confusion that it was reported for days that the suspect attacked with a knife?" That's even before pole/broomstick.) --Niemti (talk) 09:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Considered the most important news story of May 2013?

I see at this article that the incident concerning this man is considered one of the most important news stories of the past month on a popular web site. The article is written by a professional historian and published author, so it may be worth citing? --24.112.187.219 (talk) 20:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No. Meaningless trivia. And how come all the 'world news' stories are about the US?AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

"Out of fear of the lawlessness in Chechnya"

Anyone knows the Russian original version? I think he might really say, or at least imply, "bandit formations"/"bandit underground" (Russianspeak for insurgents). --Niemti (talk) 07:57, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Reuters pretty much confirms it: "He said he gave his permission when his son asked to stay in the United States because he said it was safer than Chechnya, where separatists waged two wars with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and militants still fight for an Islamic state."[1] Now I guess but he might have been an official of Zavgayev and flee to Russia only after the first war and still be afraid even circa 2008/9. --Niemti (talk) 08:41, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Still considered justified

"agent’s troubled past does not change his 2014 finding that the homicide was justified" https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/03/florida-prosecutor-says-fbi-agent-troubled-past-doesn-change-shooting-findings/mOoDvlnA72CD3dX0Frb3NO/story.html

The FBI agent in question "retired from the Oakland police in 2004 at age 31 on a tax-free disability pension that now exceeds $52,000 a year for life." Despite being disabled, he was still courageously putting himself in situations that could have led to physical conflict, such as being attacked with a plastic broom. 2601:600:8500:B2D9:612B:3A31:E262:B037 (talk) 00:25, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

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