Talk:Killing of Stephon Clark/Archive 2

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Proposed wording for the "Stephon Clark" section of the article

This is an attempt to pull together the discussion under various threads here, about what to say about his biography, including his background and his criminal convictions.

Stephon Clark (born Stephen Clark) was a graduate of Sacramento High School. He was the father of two sons, ages 1 and 3. At the time of his death, Clark was 22 years old. His brother, Stevante Clark, told KOVR that he and Stephon had come from "underprivileged, broken homes”. A 16-year-old brother was killed in a shooting in 2006. Stevante Clark said Stephon had been released from county jail about a month before the shooting and had been staying with his grandparents on and off, adding "He was arrested before, but he's been different lately. He really changed his life." Sacramento County court records show that Clark had a history of convictions for robbery, domestic abuse, and a prostitution-related offense. At the time of his death he was on probation for a 2014 robbery conviction. Several community leaders noted that his criminal record has nothing to do with his being shot, pointing out that the police officers were unaware of his record at the time.

Sources

If people prefer, the "community leaders noted" sentence could be moved to "Responses" as it is not really part of his biography. Comments? --MelanieN (talk) 23:32, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

NOTE: I just changed "Clark lost a 16 year old brother" to "A 16 year old brother was killed in a shooting", the same wording as the source. "Lost" is a euphemism, and this wording ties in better with the "underprivileged" upbringing. Hope that's OK with the people who have already supported by proposed text. --MelanieN (talk) 00:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Support inclusion of this well sourced text. I think we should probably keep the comments about the community leaders saying the officers didn't know about the past arrests with the text regarding the arrests, because it relates to and balances this text, even if it isn't strictly biographical information.--DynaGirl (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Support: thank you for taking the time to draft. -Darouet (talk) 23:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

That is well written in my opinion and I feel it should be added to the article. Bus stop (talk) 00:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

That look like a good description of his biography for the article. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:54, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The "prostitution-related" bit has clearly been rejected above. Bundling it with other less obviously objectionable material is not the best way to reach a clear consensus. "All or none" choices can't provide the best solution. SPECIFICO talk 00:58, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

There was some feeling in the discussion above that we should leave out "pimping". In fact I also said to leave it out - because in the source said "charged with" and I was only willing to list convictions. However, I later found what the charge was ("procuring someone for the purpose of prostitution") and what it was reduced to in his plea ("loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution").[1] The word "pimping" was never officially used - that was the reporter's interpretation. For all we know it could simply mean that he attempted to engage the services of a prostitute. So I preferred to go with the wording of the actual conviction and say "prostitution-related". --MelanieN (talk) 03:02, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

In late 2015, Clark was charged with “pimping” ...Clark pleaded no contest to the charge. yet another source using the term pimping. it should be included as sourced [2] Darkstar1st (talk) 01:15, 3 April 2018 (UTC) [

more details of the other convictions we should consider for inclusion, felony armed robbery and assault and endangering the life of a child. 2014, bruising and swelling to her right eye,” it says, and complained of pain in her right elbow. The woman said Clark had punched her. Darkstar1st (talk) 01:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The issue is not which word to use. The reason it doesn't belong in the article is that it's orthogonal to the subject. And the long discussion above demonstrates no consensus to include it. SPECIFICO talk 01:42, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The scope of the article includes more than just the shooting. There is a "prostitution-related offense". Why should it be omitted? Bus stop (talk) 02:09, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

SPECIFICOthe shooting occurred after he is suspected of attempting to break into a home. the last time he robbed someone, he did it a with a weapon, assaulted the victim, in the process a child was endangered. the same person plead no contest to beating and selling women, i don't think orthogonal means what you think it does. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:12, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Bus stop, the more times you repeat that, the more it appears you have no rationale for your assertion. If you'd like to move the article to some other title/subject then go-fer-it. Meanwhile these personal details have nothing to do with the subject of the article. They are orthogonal to the subject. SPECIFICO talk 02:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

"Clearly rejected" by you. There is no clear consensus above, and the wording being discussed right now is different than that above anyways. It makes sense to include a brief biography of the man who was shot for a very simple reason: many, if not most, sources that describe the shooting also describe some facts about the life of the man who was shot. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 05:15, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

SPECIFICO—the shooting is certainly the central event but it is not the only area of information valid for inclusion in the article. An informative article would not document only the six minutes of the shooting. The shooting is a confluence of prior conditions finding expression in various lives. If an aspect of one the police officer's lives received attention in sources, wouldn't it likely find its way into our article, and couldn't there be a degree of propriety in its presence in our article? Bus stop (talk) 05:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• nothing to do with his being shot Seems like an awfully definitive statement to say in Wikipedia's voice and colloquial besides. I would reword this somehow, although it will be hard to do without getting coat-racky about modern race relations in the US. To MelanieN, I think this is a case where for NPOV it is important to present them together. It gives a much different impression overall to present them how the sources do, one immediately following the other, rather in different sections on other sides of the article. GMG^talk 13:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• I guess to be more specific I would replace the last sentence with an attributed quote, something like According to the LA Times, leaders in the community were "adamant that Clark's criminal record was immaterial to how he died". The inclusion of "several" is also playing a little fast and loose, since the source includes by my count three people, and three is not quite the same as several. GMG^talk 16:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I like the paraphrase, including the point that the officers did not know about his record, but I will go with whichever version people prefer. Folks, what do you think - for the last sentence of the proposed text? --MelanieN (talk) 17:29, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, even if we don't like the quote "several" materially changes the information in the source, and we should find some other way to word it. GMG^talk 17:31, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

To me it is more problematic to just say "leaders in the community" - as if they were unanimous. How about "some"? --MelanieN (talk) 17:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

That's fine. I don't know that I agree there is a meaningful difference between "community leaders" and "leaders in the community"... maybe "leaders of the community" (which in my mind would definitely imply unanimity), but it's not going to hurt my feelings either way. GMG^talk 17:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

My problem wasn't with "leaders in the community" vs. "community leaders"; I am fine either way. My problem was starting the sentence with "Leaders in the community said.." without any modification - all of them? some of them? several of them? A couple of them? I wanted something that didn't suggest unanimity (even though the source does). --MelanieN (talk) 17:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree we should avoid suggesting unanimity. I think GMG's suggested rewording is also good, but I'd take out "adamant" and replace it with "expressed" or "stated". Perhaps change "leaders in the community were adamant that Clark's criminal record was immaterial" to "multiple leaders in the community expressed that Clark's criminal record was immaterial".(Add - I think adamant is probably accurate terminology here in that it expresses strong belief, but I also worry that it might not be neutral in that it can have connotation of unreasonableness, so seems a more neutral a term might be better)--DynaGirl (talk) 18:00, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

So... something like:

Stephon Clark (born Stephen Clark) was a graduate of Sacramento High School. He was the father of two sons. At the time of his death, Clark was 22 years old; his sons were ages 1 and 3. His brother, Stevante Clark, told KOVR that he and Stephon had come from "underprivileged, broken homes”. A 16-year-old brother was killed in a shooting in 2006. Stevante Clark said Stephon had been released from county jail about a month before the shooting and had been staying with his grandparents on and off, adding "He was arrested before, but he's been different lately. He really changed his life." Sacramento County court records show that Clark had a history of convictions for robbery, domestic abuse, and a prostitution-related offense. At the time of his death he was on probation for a 2014 robbery conviction. According to the LA Times, multiple leaders in the community expressed that Clark's criminal record was immaterial to his death.

Sources

I also tweaked the ages of his kids a little bit. It sounds stupid but they were ages 1 and 3 at the time of death, which is the part of their age that is relevant to the subject of the article. GMG^talk 18:10, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Should we add community leaders stated the police did not know about the past criminal record at the time of the shooting? This apparently is an opinion related to the police, but also a reasonable opinion IMO, (I don't think police knew name of suspect to possibly run background on him) and this is mentioned in reliable sources. --DynaGirl (talk) 18:18, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Maybe just add to the final sentence so: "According to the LA Times, multiple leaders in the community expressed that Clark's criminal record was immaterial to his death, stating that police were unaware of Clark's record at the time." --DynaGirl (talk) 18:25, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Where is the unaware bit coming from? I don't see it in the LAT piece, or maybe I'm just missing it. GMG^talk 18:50, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The "unaware" bit is paraphrased from the comment by the youth mentoring guy, Derrell Roberts: "Neither officer involved in the shooting, nor the helicopter pilot didn't know this, not one of the people who might have called 911 knew his record. So his record is irrelevant to what happened." He is eloquent, but it's too long for the purposes of this paragraph. --MelanieN (talk) 20:32, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Who are "community leaders"? Do you mean the elected mayor, or just some random guy trying to talk big about himself? Dream Focus 18:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

"Community leaders" is the wording from the LAT. By name, they include the extended comments of Berry Accius, a black community leader, Derrell Roberts, who runs a youth mentoring program, and NAACP Sacramento chapter President Betty Williams. GMG^talk 18:28, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Should just mention the NAACP chapter president. Dream Focus 18:46, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• I could be fine with this also. Other thoughts? GMG^talk 18:50, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't see any harm including all 3 community leaders in this brief sentence. The community leaders are a large focus on LA Times article and there's significant community protests and unrest following the shooting, so seems comments from community leaders are relevant. We could use footnote to indicate who the community leaders are if there is concern they might be misinterpreted as elected officials. --DynaGirl (talk) 18:54, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Eh. Quoting all three of them is probably a little too much, and getting into Wikiquote territory, not that this wouldn't make a really good subject for a companion Wikiquote page anyway. If anyone is interested I can set up a bare bones one and we can add content as we go. GMG^talk 19:36, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Any characterization of the extent of that view, without attribution, is OR. The back and forth above is editor OR going beyond what the proposed LAT source states. You could cite the NAACP officer, as proposed, but the whole thing raises the insinuation that it's responding to some assertion that the victim's background contributed to his killing. I have not seen any such statement in RS. SPECIFICO talk 18:57, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• That's not what OR is. GMG^talk 18:58, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

As I've previously said, you're welcome to discuss personal issues on my user talk page. This article talk page is loaded with OR arguments. Fact. SPECIFICO talk 19:01, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

That's not what OR is. GMG^talk 19:03, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Glad to explain: "Community leaders said..." does not convey the same meaning as "Community leaders said...""Three community leaders said" (corrected 19:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)) That's OR. Similar issues come up all the time when we make lists of key points or make other generalizations when paraphrasing RS. It's important to be sensitive to the meaning conveyed by the details of language and context. SPECIFICO talk 19:13, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Are you making a joke? GMG^talk 19:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Nah just typo, corrected. 2 things I haven't got: POV. Sense of Humor. SPECIFICO talk 19:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• No one proposed saying "Three community leaders said". GMG^talk 19:24, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, but we cannot just say "community leaders said" because it is undefined. We could say the LA Times quoted community leaders who said or something like that -- that is substantially but not entirely OK. SPECIFICO talk 20:24, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, we can say that. GMG^talk 20:30, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, all. If we are going to name the community leaders, or quote all three of them, that should go in the Reactions section. Which would be fine if someone wants to do it. What I am looking for here is a single sentence for the biography, following the the information about his criminal record. Also, I don't see any need to say "According to the Los Angeles Times..."; they are just doing standard reporting, not making an editorial statement or anything, and a citation is all we need. Also, I would rather leave the sons' ages in the sentence about the sons; putting information about them into two different sentences looks clumsy. Open for discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 20:26, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Now we have another OR or fails V issue. One of the cited leaders says "unaware". So clearly that wording cannot be attributed to community leaders in general or to all of any group that's named. Can't make this stuff up folks. It is fraught. @GreenMeansGo: -- what say you? SPECIFICO talk 21:00, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN:These problems are exactly why his criminal record should not be in the bio section. And any solution to the current set of problems will be replaced by a similar set of problems with any alternative approach. They will keep popping up. It's essentially a bad idea. SPECIFICO talk 21:05, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

There are suggestions above that already address this. We could just end the section with "multiple community leaders expressed that Clark's criminal record was immaterial", which the LA Times source explicitly states as a summary of the various community leaders comments. Additional content regarding individual quotes could possibly be added to a reactions section as MelanieN suggested or a wikiquote page as GMG suggested. --DynaGirl (talk) 21:15, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

1. That's not what original research is. You're welcome to ask at The Help Desk if you really need it explained to you in further detail than it already has been.
2. After a nice spring run to refresh my mind (gee is it pretty outside today, really perfect running weather), I'm really just fine saying we have a rough consensus for something akin to the proposal, and let most of these little tweaks happen organically, most of them I wouldn't revert either way, even though I might offer tweaks of my own. Of course, by "rough consensus for something akin to the proposal" I mean that one disruptive user shouldn't blanket revert productive work because they don't understand policy, and the rest of us that actually can manage to collaborate with one another should be allowed to write an article together. GMG^talk 21:50, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree we are certainly ready to insert something along the lines proposed here - without worrying about the objections from one editor. One editor cannot overrule consensus. --MelanieN (talk) 21:57, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

How about something along the lines of "The point was made by community leader and NAACP Sacramento chapter President Betty Williams that..." Bus stop (talk) 23:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Better to just quote the commentator opinion. If his record were actually irrelevant to the shooting, it wouldn't be mentioned in every RS. What they technically mean is that the officers' decision-making was not influenced by knowledge of Clark's record, because they didn't have any—but that's quite a mouthful and is not explicitly laid out by any RS, I suspect. Factchecker_atyourservice 03:19, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

More editor opinion SPECIFICO talk 03:28, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest eliminating the sentence reading "Several community leaders noted that his criminal record has nothing to do with his being shot, pointing out that the police officers were unaware of his record at the time." As MelanieN has pointed out, that could be added to the "Responses" section. But that could be considered at a later time. Bus stop (talk) 05:37, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

We clearly have consensus for restoring the biography material to the article, including the conviction information. What is in dispute, is whether to include a sentence quoting community leaders about the significance of his convictions, and if so, how to word it. I'm going to add the biography material to the article, omitting that last sentence. We can then discuss here at our leisure what to do about any additional commentary. --MelanieN (talk) 16:37, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Please see recent advice at BLP/N to the contrary. SPECIFICO talk 16:44, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

If you’re going to refer people to another site, a link would be helpful. (I see that I and two other people from this discussion were pinged there a few days ago, but I didn’t get the ping and I suspect they didn’t either.) At that discussion two people, commenting in general, said to exclude the convictions. That opinion should be compared to our past practice, which I documented below, of including past convictions in such cases. You have invited those two people to join the discussion here, and that is appropriate. In the meantime I did include the convictions based on local consensus here. --MelanieN (talk) 16:59, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I didn't originate that thread, but it's indeed unfortunate that you were not notified. I was not notified either. I think you're underplaying the extent of the objections raised by those two editors. I think that what they said clearly applies to the text you added subsequent to their comments and my ping to make sure you saw their concerns. It's important we not rush what appears to be a BLP violation into this article due to a head count on this talk page - a headcount that's in my view conspicuously unsupported by any sound policy-based rationale and that's been rather erratically and sloppily argued. I think that at the least -- as I said on your talk page yesterday -- we should await further fresh input from other editors here. Not everyone checks this page, BLP/N or WP in general every day. I think that this needs some time in view of the clear lack of consensus for the text you just inserted. I think the best course would be if you undo that addition and post it in a fresh section here for discussion. The alternative, as I said on your talk, would be for someone else to revert it and start an RfC, which is a nuisance and often unduly cumbersome. Please reflect. The article is in needs of all kinds of other improvements (such as the ones I have recently made even amid all this BLP haggling). It's hardly urgent to add this very questionable personal information. SPECIFICO talk 17:14, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I actually saw your ping, and your comment here about BLPN, after I had decided to add the material. But it would not have changed my action. At this local discussion, a clear consensus has developed to include conviction information, with you as the only person objecting. (The earlier discussion where multiple people said "exclude" was specifically about the "pimping" accusation, not about whether to include any conviction information at all.) Your opinion that this kind of information violates BLP has been explicitly rejected by other people here, and your "in my view" dismissal of everyone else's comments does not add strength to your position. Combining that local consensus with the evidence that previous similar articles have included conviction information (in other words, apparently a consensus at multiple other articles), I feel comfortable that the material should be in the article. If someone does remove it, I think it would take very little time to establish a consensus to restore it. --MelanieN (talk) 18:12, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, if there's an RfC to verify consensus it's going to take at least a month, so it's not clear that forcing that option is the most expeditious mode of resolution. SPECIFICO talk 21:26, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN and SPECIFICO: I apologize that you did not receive the ping. I opened a request at BLPN within an hour of SPECIFICO raising BLP objections [3], but it appears that I bungled the ping [4]. My intention was to notify everyone involved in the discussion of my post through the ping; now that I know you didn't receive the ping I'm not surprised you didn't comment there earlier! Also pinging @GreenMeansGo and Darkstar1st:, whom I meant to notify at that time. -Darouet (talk) 18:36, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Community leader comments

I have added the biographical information to the Stephon Clark section. We have not reached agreement about whether to 1) also include a sentence quoting community leaders that his conviction was unrelated to the shooting; or 2) put something along those lines in the Responses section; or 3) both; or 4) neither. There is a lot of valid discussion about this above, and it shoud be considered part of this discussion. I am just starting a new subsection for convenience in editing (sometimes called "arbitrary break"). Please do state your general feeling about whether to say something and where; then continue your discussion about wording. --MelanieN (talk) 16:48, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I still do think it's NPOV to follow the sources, and say some kind of rebutting sentence in the biographical section, editorially close to the discussion of the convictions themselves. I'm fine with pretty much any of the variations in doing it except for providing direct quotes from all three in the LA Times piece, since that is going to end up being a lot of real estate that should really probably be at Wikiquote. Summarizing the "community leaders" position is fine. Quoting the NAACP rep is fine. Both is fine. It's an editorial decision, but directly supported by the source any way you go. GMG^talk 17:07, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree, I think it'd be best to have some kind of response to the sentence about his convictions right afterwards. It could be short, and expanded upon in the responses section, but I think it should be there. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 17:11, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

This is implying a straw man and should not be in the article. Do we have any source stating that his criminal record is related to the killing? If not, why add text that sounds as if it is rebutting something somebody said? SPECIFICO talk 17:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I think a brief sentence regarding community leaders saying his criminal history is unrelated to the shooting should be added. Reliable sources which discuss Clark's criminal history also includes these comments from community leaders, so it seems it should be included. Agree it should be kept brief in the biographical section but can be expanded upon in responses section. --DynaGirl (talk) 19:03, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN, GreenMeansGo, Red Rock Canyon, SPECIFICO, and DynaGirl: I have added one sentence, per MelanieN's original proposal above, on the response by community leaders [5]. -Darouet (talk) 19:42, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I do think we should include the community leader comments, but have been torn on where. Strictly speaking and per logical organization, it belongs in the Responses section, and I do think we should put something there, possibly naming the individuals and a one-sentence summary of what they each said. I am torn whether to add a brief sentence like the ones already suggested to the biography section. We are including his past record because many Reliable Sources are doing so. At least one such Reliable Source immediately paired that record with comments pointing out that it was unrelated to the shooting. There is some common-sense rationale for doing so, to avoid any suggestion of “he deserved it” or similar reactions to his record. I am leaning toward including a single brief sentence to put the record in context with the shooting, and I am good with what Darouet added. --MelanieN (talk) 20:03, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Including that "oh, of course it's irrelevant..." is implying a statement that it is relevant, which so far only a couple of WP editors have said (Darkstar1 and Bus stop) but no RS have said. However this insinuation that the "irrelevant" info is possibly rebutting widespread speculation to the contrary is a tactic that's now been deployed by Fox News, here [6]. This does not belong in our article unless it is to balance an explicit claim that his past record was indeed a factor. SPECIFICO talk 22:41, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Number of facts which RS's have explicitly stated were relevant to the shooting: zero. So, should we blank the page because according to RS's, no facts are relevant? Factchecker_atyourservice 01:08, 5 April 2018 (UTC)