Talk:Knee-on-neck restraint

George Floyd

8'46" here. I've heard various figures for the length of time. WP currently has 9'29".

In case anyone is wanting to write more about this case, we might want to think about language. There's a WP article called "Murder of George Floyd". Neither that article nor any of the connected ones explains what 2nd- and 3rd-degree murder mean in Minnesota law. I did hear the judge's explanation when the verdicts were broadcast. It seems to me this is not properly neutral. Legal definitions of murder vary with place and time. Most of the United States don't even have such a thing as 3rd-degree, and over here the terms mean something quite different. As far as I can make out, what Chauvin was charged with and convicted of would be only manslaughter over here, but I'm open to correction by someone with relevant knowledge. Peter Jackson (talk) 05:12, 26 July 2022 (CDT)

• Peter Jackson, thanks!

I put a __NOINDEX__ on the page, because I wanted you and Pat to feel comfortable, before it goes live.

The nytimes did a pretty good breakdown of the timeline, about a month after Floyd's death. Then prosecution came up with a different time, about 7 minutes and change, and some wikipedia contributors rushed to replace all other times, and not even mention that there was any dispute over the time.

A lot of controversial activity went on around articles related to the death.

1. Within a day or so of the death a constellation of articles were put in place, including one entitled Derek Chauvin (police officer). Multiple people were firmly committed to turning that into a redirect, to Killing of George Floyd#Officers involved. Within the first day or so, Derek Chauvin (police officer) was nominated for deletion.

   You know what, I started going into a lot of detail. The main point was it revealed that a group of administrators, had decided there shouldn't be an article on Derek Chauvin, and they were (1) going to play out a charade that gave the surface appearance that the decision they had already made, offline, was being made in the wikipedia fora; (2) they were prepared to use threats and other forms of intimidation, and mis-use their administrator permission bits, to try to make sure their off-wiki decision stood.

   Ugly, really, really ugly.

2. A couple of days after Floyd's death Derek Chauvin's wife's lawyer announced (1) she was divorcing him; (2) that she had received death threats; (3) that she was changing her name.

   Some individuals, over-zealously, in my opinion, wanted to remove all references to her name, not only from article space, but also from talk pages, and other fora. Administrators, over-zealously, in my opinion, used, or rather mis-used their revision-deletion powers to rev-del all attempts any discussion about her, that included her name. The called upon the authority of the Biographies of Living People policy (BLP) to justify this.

   BLP does call on contributors to respect the privacy of "non-notable people". But I don't think that protection applied to her. In 2018 Chauvin's wife competed and won in the Mrs Minnesota beauty pageant. Multiple reporters sought her out for interviews after she won. There is a large Hmong community in the Minneapolis/St Pauls area, and she had been the first woman of Hmong descent to win the pageant. IMO, no one who agrees to schedule an interview with a reporter, should be regarded as "not-notable", if that interview is published. And, the 2018 coverage, while it would not have been enough to justify an article about her, all by itself, in 2018, meant she was not a BLP1E, as that makes for two events.

   Those wanting to suppress all coverage of her, even her name, also argued she was protected under the clause that protects the names of people ... I forget the exact wording, but it seemed clear to me that clause was aimed at individuals, like child victims, where a judge had issued a court order that reporters could not use the victim's name in press coverage. At the time of this dispute my google search for "'Derek Chauvin' wife" gave me over 30,000 hits. When I repeated that search in February? 3.5 million google hits. So, first, it was clearly pointless to try to protect her married name. Second, the real name that we should have been concerned about protecting was the new name she planned to adopt, in place of her name when married to Chauvin. If you really look you can find her maiden name, and the name she used during her first marriage. There would be no real value in introducing those names into article space. Hopefully, if she really wanted her name to provide anonymity, she would not return to either of her two previous names.

   Those overzealous administrators even went so far as to rev-del edits merely for including a URL to a newspaper article that mentioned her name in the body of the article - ie her name was not in the URL that was part of the edit. Nuts.

   IMO those arguing for this level of protection were pushing a POV, and trying to use the wikipedia as a soapbox. They assumed if her husband was a brutal cop, and a killer, she must have been abused, must have hated him, and wanted to leave, but feared him too much until his imprisonment made leaving him feel safe. This shows their bias. The judge who oversaw their divorce said the settlement of assets she and Chauvin agreed to seemed deceitful. I forget the exact term she used, but legal commentators explained the judge meant Chauvin's suggestion he transfer the bulk of marital assets to her made it look like a "divorce of convenience". It looked like Chauvin anticipated that, just like OJ Simpson's in-laws sued him in civil court, Chauvin anticipated Floyd's family would sue him for monetary damages, and he wanted to transfer all his assets to the ex-wife, where the assets would be out of reach to the Floyd family. Then, at one of Floyd's sentencing hearings, his lawyer argued for leniency, claiming his ex-wife still supported him, would visit him regularly, a play a role in his rehabilitation. If his lawyer's claim was true it undermined the POV of those pushing to suppress mention of her name because she must hate her ex-husband.

• In general I have always thought the wikipedia notion that BLP required articles entitled [[John Doe]] be renamed the [[Murder of John Doe]] or the [[Marriage of John Doe]], was embarrassing. I thought it exposed the wikipedia to ridicule. I thought it was particularly ridiculous when no meaningful attempts to edit those articles were made after the renaming.
• Since that debate additional events, above the controverial assertion that the divorce was merely for convenience and hiding assets, have occurred. The Chauvin had bought a property in Florida, and Florida voting records showed Derek Chauvin had voted there. It is widely accepted he voted twice. IIRC Florida was prepared to prosecute, for voter fraud, when Minnesota cooperated and confirmed he voted twice, but Minnesota prosecutors thought, since he was already facing stiff sentences, this would be a waste of time. Had his wife voted there? Fifth, the Chauvin's joint tax returns claimed Florida, not Minnesota, was their principal residence. They are on the hook for about $150,000 in fraudulently unpaid back taxes.