Talk:Montgomery Police Department (Alabama)

Misconduct section
I do not understand why another editor blanked the misconduct section after removing the names of the various officers involved. They seemed properly cited. Is there a formatting problem with my cites? Paul, in Saudi (talk) 17:17, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I blanked two paragraphs in this edit because the referencing is not yet acceptable: essential and proper bibliographic information is missing. I've source the others already, but in the meantime we have no business making such statements without the right kind of sourcing. Lest we forget, these are BLP issues. It's for the same reason that I blanked out the names. There is no conceivable encyclopedic benefit to having the officers' names in this article. For starters, the article is not about the officers but about the police department, and naming them is only shaming them. For seconds, while it is customary in the US to name just about everyone even if they're accused of farting on the sidewalk, Wikipedia does not necessarily have to abide by US journalism habits. Finally, these aren't cases that even went to court, as far as I can tell (there is no follow-up for any of them; perhaps there was none, but who knows), and in general we don't even include such information in our articles if all there is is an allegation and a resignation. In fact, I'm going to place a note on WP:BLPN to see what the conventions and guidelines are for such cases. If a police department is or has experienced serious problems, that's worthwhile noting, if properly references; but individual cases of alleged misconduct do not necessarily taint the department as a whole. Note that I have no love for the MPD, but I see no reason to disparage their reputation unfairly. Drmies (talk) 17:23, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * See Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Drmies (talk) 17:30, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I added verifiable cites to the two other examples of misconduct. The search warrant SNAFU seems less like misconduct and more like incompetence.  EricSerge (talk) 17:52, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Per the discussion at the BLP noticeboard, I have removed the entire section. Consensus is that the information is not relevant to the article and not in agreement with our BLP policy, since these are mere incidents and not full-fledged investigations with court cases and broad coverage in the media. Drmies (talk) 23:22, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your edits. I replied more fully on the BLP talk page. I seem to recall this one of my earlier edits and I was over-eager. (I found the gosh darn details, I am going to post them!) Paul, in Saudi (talk) 01:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * And thanks for your response. BLP issues can easily problematic, and (as I said elsewhere, I believe) we should err on the side of caution. Please don't take my categorical-sounding statements as indictments of your work: setting BLP issues aside, you did your job, and even the missing bibliographic information (a problem that was easily solved) was not a problem. That is, if it hadn't been a BLP matter I wouldn't have commented on it. Thanks again, Drmies (talk) 04:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Police misconduct, reprise
Hello Paul--here we are again. I looked back and I still think that this kind of content is not acceptable, for reasons mentioned before. We typically don't report crimes and allegations unless they've been through a court of law and there's been a conviction, or widespread coverage of a age. I saw you added a link to Killing of Bernard Whitehurst, which is good--that deserves a paragraph in this article. There's a book coming out about the killing soon, if it's not out already; User:FloNight wrote that article and may have an interest. In addition, there's the murder, sorry killing of Greg Gunn, which is finally going to trial it seems, after three judges have recused and a fourth was asked to recuse on pretty flimsy grounds. You mentioned the Civil Rights era: there is no doubt that there should be plenty to report from that time. I don't know if the MPD was as proactively defending the racist status quo as the Birmingham police was, but there can be little doubt of passivity, complicity, or worse--just take the case of the Greyhound Bus Station (Montgomery, Alabama): if it takes 500 US Marshalls to protect people from a violent, racist mob, one wonders where the cops were at. Anyway, that sort of material is much more relevant and appropriate than a list of recent events that, relatively speaking, are minor and probably didn't amount to much, unless of course we have secondary sourcing that argues patterns of misconduct or things like that. Does that make sense? Drmies (talk) 15:03, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * OMG, Paul, Birmingham Police Department has even less content. Drmies (talk) 16:36, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your guidance on this. Bearing the Cross is well worth your time. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 05:23, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
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 * Montgomery PD Badge.png

Old obituaries from September 1994 Larry Peterson Sr
Larry Peterson Sr 2600:6C58:607F:17D0:44E6:265D:72B6:2571 (talk) 13:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)