Wikipedia Volunteers Avert Tragedy by Taking Down Gunman at Conference

A potential tragedy was narrowly averted at a Wikipedia conference in Manhattan when two volunteer editors tackled an armed man who stormed the stage and threatened to kill himself during a keynote speech (source paywalled; alternative source). The gunman, who claimed he was protesting Wikipedia's policy banning self-identified pedophiles, was disarmed and taken into custody after community members swiftly intervened. The New York Times reports: The armed man came striding up the aisle at a conference for Wikipedia editors Friday morning in Manhattan, several witnesses said. The man, draped in a multicolored flag, walked onto the stage and stood next to Maryana Iskander, the chief of the nonprofit group that runs Wikipedia, interrupting her speech. He announced that he was going to kill himself. He held a gun near his head and pointed it toward the ceiling. The audience of well over a hundred people panicked.

'People started yelling, 'Get down, get down!' and people started ducking behind their chairs,' said Bill Adair, a journalism professor who was there and is writing a book on Wikipedia. A man in an orange sweatshirt rushed the stage. He was not in law enforcement, but a Wikipedia contributor on the conference's 'trust and safety team': Richard Knipel, the City University of New York's 'Wikimedian-in-residence.' He grabbed the gunman from behind. Another Wikipedian on the trust and safety team, Andrew Lih, had been standing watch in the aisle and charged forward, too.

'I saw the gun he's holding go from pointing up at the ceiling to sweeping down toward the room, and as it swept across me I said 'Oh, my god,' and I ducked down, but I still kept moving' said Mr. Lih, a digital strategist who works with museums and libraries. 'I grabbed his arm,' he continued. 'He was still clutching his gun pretty hard. I pried his fingers away from it, removed it from his hands and put it down.' The gun was loaded, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a pending investigation. In seconds, a potential scene of bloodshed had been averted, a life may have been saved, and two volunteer editors of an online encyclopedia had become unlikely heroes.

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