Talk:Killing of Kayla Rolland

More about school.
Victuallers 11:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The longest part about the article shouldn't be a shooting. True, the school closed, but there must have been at least one other thing that had happened. For instance, the date that it opened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.153.22.31 (talk) 21:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

why did he do it?? how the heck did he get the gun. aamerica is to free with its guns. no fire arms except a four shot pistol should be alowed. the pistol can be any type, but it must have only four rounds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.220.102.253 (talk) 22:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

How does that help? So they can only kill four people before reloading? how does that help at ALL? TimonofAthens (talk) 19:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Article Title
I have a problem with the title of this article being "Murder of Kayla Rolland." The child who killed Kayla was only 6 and it was determined he couldn't have formed the intent to kill her. Murder is defined as the unlawful taking of life with malice aforethought, so as such I don't think this should be classified as a "murder." Perhaps "Death of Kayla Rolland"? Thoughts? Robert Beck (talk) 00:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree - moved to Shooting of Kayla Rolland. Exxolon (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought the article should be named Murder of Kayla Rolland. In spite of his age, he intended to harm her and knew guns would harm people. He threw the gun in a trash can and hid. He knew he had done wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.97.40.180 (talk) 20:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Birth and death date of Kayla
""The shooting of Kayla Rolland occurred at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Michigan, United States on February 29, 2000. Six-year-old Dedric Darnell Owens fatally shot classmate Kayla Renee Rolland (May 12, 1993 – February 29, 2000) in a stairwell before he was taken into police custody. Buell Elementary School closed in 2002.""

Now is it just me, or is listed the death date of Kayle in the parenthesis sorta redundant? I mean, you stated the date of the shooting in the first sentence and you explain that the shooting was fatal is in the second sentence, doesn't that make listing the death date in the parenthesis redundant and unneeded?  CRRays Head90  | #OneMoreGame 17:15, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * School site.png

Name?
You have removed the name of the shooter from the begging of the article. But, the rest of the article mentions him as "Owens" 17 more times. This way, it's very odd. He is "unnamed" in the first sentence, but is then named "Owens" in the rest of the article. Can you fix it?  Vanjagenije  (talk)  14:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)


 * You make a valid point. We cannot assume that the child suspect has the same last name as the father. I will replace "Owens" with the word "suspect." Thank you! User talk:NabuThoth  12:02 EST, 12 December 2019


 * We should first address what the policy rationale is for redacting the name from the article. Media and press reports at the time in 2000 withheld Owen's name (rightly so) pre-adjudication because he was a juvenile accused of something very serious, but I'm not sure our encyclopedia article 19 years removed from the incident should follow that convention.  Are there any Wikipedia policy arguments that specifically speak to the concern that we should redact it when it's been in this article since it's inception in 2007?  Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 19:31, 12 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you for making a valid point. I'm not redacting the name because he was a juvenile. I'm redacting the name because, according to the article, it was the name of the suspect's father. Somehow, whoever initially wrote the article mistakenly associated the name with the suspect. It is very possible that the child is a "Jr" and the father is the "Sr." Unfortunately, the existing citations do not presently support that conclusion. User talk:NabuThoth  3:21pm EST, 12 December 2019.


 * Thank you for making that clear, and I see now that I misunderstood what was going on here. Rather embarrassing that this article has had that wrong all this time!  By all means, we should correct the article accordingly.  Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 21:40, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Corrective edit implemented here. Thanks, AzureCitizen (talk) 21:57, 12 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Never mind this naming controversy. It's tempting to wish an error was fixed sooner, but what's done is done, and the past is in the past. At least Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden (who have way cooler, funner-to-say names than "Dedrick Owens") have been publicly identified since day one, so no correction needed for that article. I have been aware of both of these shooting cases for three years now after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting caused me to look up mass shooting statistics on Google out of curiosity. I am somewhat disappointed that the name "Dedrick Owens" turned out to be a hoax, but I would have been at least 10x more disappointed if the names "Mitchell Johnson" and "Andrew Golden" turned out to be hoaxes instead, which they thankfully aren't. The hoax went unnoticed for twelve and a half years. The article, which was created in May 2007 was the age of a middle school student when the hoax was finally discovered and fixed. Six months away from the end of COPPA's age range. Sure, what these three people did was wrong in every stretch of the imagination, but you can like their names without defending their actions. 173.76.246.128 (talk) 21:00, 24 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Pretty sure the shooter's name IS Dedrick Darnell Owens. His father's name doesn't have the letter K. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:408:8001:120:B833:1FC0:CC89:AB70 (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Nope. The K spelling appears to have originated on Wikipedia. The father's middle name is Darnell, and his obituary lists 3 sons, none of whom are have names with a K. Plantdrew (talk) 02:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I think WP:BLPNAME name applies. The boy wasn't named in sources at the time of the shooting, and was not named in the article published on the 20th anniversary of the event which discussed some of his subsequent life. Reliable sources avoid mentions his name. Unreliable sources have picked up spelling that apparently originated on Wikipedia. Wikipedia should not have publicized his name in the first place. Plantdrew (talk) 02:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Youngest Shooter
He is not the youngest school shooter in general since on August 22, 2013, a 5-year-old student fired a gun at Westside Elementary School, but he is the youngest fatal shooter so i think that the article should mentioned him as the youngest fatal school shooter and not just the youngest school shooter--Cadeken (talk) 02:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

"Dedrick owens" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dedrick_owens&redirect=no Dedrick owens] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Plantdrew (talk) 21:33, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Stop hiding perpetrators name
It is already common knowledge among those familiar with this case that the perpetrators name is Dedrick Owens. There is no point in trying to hide it and refer to him as “The assailant” or something like that, just use his real name, thanks. Genberg47 (talk) 20:11, 19 February 2024 (UTC)


 * His name is not spelled Dedrick. Plantdrew (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes it is, his father spells it Dedric, the perpetrator himself spells it Dedrick. Genberg47 (talk) 00:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No he doesn't. See the father's obituary. The father has sons named Dedric II, Dedric Jr. and Deangelo. Reputable journalists refrain from naming the boy. There is no reason for Wikipedia to name him. Plantdrew (talk) 00:46, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * First of all that obituary doesn't even make sense how could he have had two different sons named Dedric II and Dedric Jr, that's not even possible as those terms would both refer to the same person. Secondly, If you google "Dedrick Owens", there are hundreds, potentially even thousands of results that pop up, including articles from "reputable journalists"; Medium.com has an article on Owens, so suppressing his name is pointless. Genberg47 (talk) 01:00, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It is entirely possible for parents to give multiple children the same first name, and distinguish them by middle names (or to refer to one of them as "junior"). There are reputable journalists that publish on Medium.com, but publishing there does not ensure that somebody is a reputable journalist. As far as I can tell, the misspelling as "Dedrick" (for the father or possibly a son) originated on Wikipedia, as did "Darnell" as a possible middle name for a son. Wikipedia fucked up by naming the boy in the first place (WP:BLPNAME), and sources that misspell "Dedrick" or give the boy's middle name as "Darnell" are engaging in WP:CITOGENESIS. If you want to dig into court records that might give the boys middle name, I'm sure you could find it. WP:BLPNAME does not encourage you to do so. Plantdrew (talk) 03:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't really feel like reading through those policies as this whole thing isn't really of importance. I will just saw I agree it was probably a mistake for Wikipedia or whoever did it to leak Owens's name, but now that it is out there, name suppression is pointless, it's not like it's a threat to Owens's privacy as nothing is known about his whereabouts since 2012 when he was allegedly arrested for burglary. Also, his name is almost positively Dedrick, there is no other evidence than that one already kind of sketchy obituary to suggest otherwise. Genberg47 (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2024 (UTC)