Talk:2016 UCLA shooting

Is this event notable?

Thankfully, this event, as tragic as it was, turned out not to be what I think many of us initially assumed it to be (domestic terrorism, etc.). Sadly, murder-suicides are pretty much a daily occurrence somewhere in the US, and while this one inconvenienced thousands of people, provoked a massive response by local authorities and ATF and briefly grabbed major news coverage, it seems that it will likely be determined to be relatively insignificant in the long term. This is probably not a decision that can be or needs to be made immediately (and may need to be based in part on future coverage), but I think we should consider the possibility that this event will ultimately not justify encyclopedic coverage, so thought I would begin that discussion. General Ization ^Talk 20:42, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

It all depends on the ongoing coverage and consequences as laid out in WP:EVENT. It's right to let the dust settle before any nomination, and if not independently notable could be merged somewhere, e.g. a UCLA article, rather than deleted. Fences&Windows 21:37, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

I created a deletion discussion regarding this. You can properly weigh in there. Parsley Man (talk) 00:29, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I have merged the article into University of California, Los Angeles#2016 shooting. Optakeover^(U)(T)(C) 06:35, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

The result of the AfD discussion was: Keep. Group29 (talk) 22:33, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Ethnicity/citizenship

Removed descriptor "Indian" since the sourcing was unclear. Is he Indian-born, or U.S. born? The name sounds Bengali/Bangladeshi , but I could have that wrong. In all events, we need good sourcing on this sort of thing. And I expect that there will be a reliable source soon. Please revert my edit if you have such a source.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:29, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Hindustan Times thinks he's from Kolkata, so my rusty sub-continent ethnography holds up, almost certainly Bengali.[1]. Will wait to add brithplace until the Indian Press finds a more certain sourcing.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:53, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Sarkar a Bengali Muslim?

I would really like to know where that came from, because I didn't see that part anywhere in the news articles I read. Parsley Man (talk) 21:26, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Considering the nonsense the guy spouted on the AfD, it's probably just him jumping to conclusions. And if it's actually true, I doubt his religion is relevant anyways. ansh666 21:32, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

A couple of (presumably different) IP accounts asserted this as well, however... Parsley Man (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

107.72.99.240 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 107.77.228.135 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), plus the account - behaviorally and technically likely the same person. ansh666 21:40, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I've created a thread at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations to look into the matter. Parsley Man (talk) 22:16, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Probably a waste of time. You know how easy it is for people to make up new identities and evade those blocks.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt to try. Parsley Man (talk) 22:28, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

It's the sort of conspiracy theory that circulates on the web. I just googled "Bengali Muslim" + UCLA. It's there if you scroll down the page, you'll see assertions that early news reports called the shooter a white male. May well be true. Presumably someone who saw him registered him as doesn't-look-central-African, and told the police he was white (the entrenched cultural racism of that perception is a separate topic.) But the thing is, authorities are reluctant to release detail until they actually have the details. And this feeds a paranoia that authorities are keeping info from the public. Googling: how you can answer questions for yourself.E.M.Gregory (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Event date

I'm pretty sure that this started before 10:08AM because a BruinAlert was sent out at 9:50AM. 2605:E000:8509:4D00:1005:FE77:92D5:F46B (talk) 03:36, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

 Fixed The time of the event has been removed from the infobox, since a source for the start time cannot be found (most sources say police were notified "shortly before 10:00 am", so the event clearly started prior to that) and the end time of the event depends on your interpretation (all-clear by UCLA officials was, I think, long after 10:48 am). General Ization ^Talk 03:47, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

"Unjustified" removal of See also links

I removed the link to Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California once because the only relationship I saw between the two cases is that they both involved American engineering students born in India who were mentally unstable and committed murders (the murders themselves being quite different in terms of victims, venues and apparent motivation); it seemed to me to be an effort at WP:SYNTH to suggest that American engineering students of Indian descent are inherently unstable. I see now that the editor has restored it along with with a paragraph in the Reactions section that cites two Indian newspapers that draw parallels between the two cases. I still think the parallels are tenuous at best, and the fact that Indian newspapers find them similar does not mean that we should do so. I have not removed this link until we have some thoughts from other editors on the subject.

I have now twice removed the link to List of attacks related to post-secondary schools which was displayed as "January 21, 2014 Purdue University Shooting" because it is an easter egg (the reader clicking on the displayed link will expect an article on that specific event, not a list of every attack at a post-secondary school through which they must wade to find anything about the Purdue event), and because I see little or no parallel between the two cases. The editor says they are related because the Purdue event was "[a]nother shooting and lockdown at a university engineering building by a disgruntled graduate student that turned out not to be a mass shooting event", but I maintain we should not draw parallels because of what things turn out not to be, and the other similarities are tenuous at best. General Ization ^Talk 16:32, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, Tarasoff is primarily notable (as the article's title indicates) not because of the murder itself or the ethnicity of the murderer, but because of the legislation it prompted requiring notification of or other protective actions concerning potential victims by psychiatric professionals in California. There does not seem to be any parallel here to the Sarkar case, as no one has suggested that psychiatric professionals in California knew or should have known that Klug was in immediate danger and failed to warn him or take other action. I think that readers will struggle to see why the cases are related, other than the circumstantial link that both murderers were born in India and studied engineering at an American university in California. General Ization ^Talk 17:10, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I too fail to see a link between the two cases beyond circumstantial details. For now, I've written these details in a WP:DUE manner to the best of my ability, but I do think this ultimately should not be kept. Let it be known that one of the two sources used to cite these details is an editorial. Parsley Man (talk) 19:50, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Another editor has now added a link in the See also section to "2013 Santa Monica shooting in re Santa Monica College", a change which I also reverted. Once again, there is little or no connection between these two events other than the fact that they both occurred on post-secondary school campuses located in California. That fact by itself does not establish even tangential relevance that would make it appropriate to link the events using the See also section. See WP:SEEALSO. General Ization ^Talk 04:04, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Since the editor who added the link to Tarasoff in the See also section has made no effort to participate in this discussion, and those of us who have appear to agree that it does not belong here, I am removing it. General Ization ^Talk 03:52, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

I restored the section of the similar 1969 Indian student murder case at a different UC campus. Just because US media did not make the comparison does not justify removing a comparison made by reliable sources in the Indian press. It is not original research or a random speculation but a reaction from the national community of the suspect. Wikipedia is a world resource translated into many languages. "Just because Indians said so doesn't mean we have to": Disagreement with an Indian opinion is not justification for deletion. Indian opinions matter too. In these days when it is hard to tell campus shootings with no evidence of any political motive from those like Orlando where at least a couple of political motives are obvious, we should not be so quick to remove cases which invite comparison. His goal was to kill at least 3 people, perhaps more. The fact that he decided to target not only a woman he was spurned by but also two other professors he worked with in an engineering department (just like the Perdue case in which there was no apparent motive) makes his motives even more suspect. Terrorist attacks are an issue of planning and determination, not stability, and this crime shares several logistical elements with true terrorists like Chris Dorner who killed relatives of people he knew because they are convenient targets that at first looked like routine domestic violence. When the suspect went to all the trouble to post an anonymous blog, bring gas cans to avoid being spotted at gas stations and took the bus to work so his car would not be spotted and brought enough guns and ammunition for a mass shooting, we really don't know if he had a plan to do more harm. Bachcell (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 11 October 2017

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. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

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UCLA shooting → 2016 UCLA shooting – This isn't the only shooting that has happened at UCLA. Another shooting happened there in 1969. ^Falling_Gravity 23:05, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose because this is clearly the primary usage.[2] I also think UCLA murder-suicide would be better (more descriptive and precise) than 2016 UCLA shooting. Honestly, 2016 UCLA shooting sounds a bit like a sports event. Surtsicna (talk) 23:32, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

The WP:COMMONNAME "UCLA shooting" is ambiguous (it could refer to the 1969 shooting) and recentist. Most articles about murder-suicides on Wikipedia don't have "murder-suicide" in the title (see the articles in Category:Murder–suicides), though I guess this could be an exception. However, I think it makes more sense to stick with the original, non-ambiguous title, despite one's feelings about how it "sounds" (if it was about sports then "shooting" would probably be capitalized). ^Falling_Gravity 00:23, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you think 2016 UCLA shooting is better than UCLA murder-suicide? I think the latter is more informative, like John Quested (RAF officer) and John Quested (producer) are more informative than John Quested (1893-1948) and John Quested (born 1935). Surtsicna (talk) 21:38, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

"UCLA murder-suicide" does not tell us the year that it happened, or the attack type (was it a suicide bombing?). The title "2016 UCLA shooting" tells us all these things, so yes, I do think it's better and more informative. ^Falling_Gravity 19:38, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support move. The current title is ambiguous. Any look at Google hits or similar would make the 2016 shooting appear to be primary, but it isn't actually primary - it's merely more recent.  ONR  (talk)  09:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support move. I don't think either shooting is primary over the other when considering long term significance.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

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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.