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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ealdgyth via FACBot (talk) 22 June 2020 [1].

Death of James Ashley

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Nominator(s): HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
James Ashley was shot dead by armed police in his flat on the English south coast in 1998. Armed policing is an emotive subjective in Britain and police shootings attract a lot of media and academic attention, especially when it turns out that the person shot was unarmed. In the aftermath, the officer who pulled the trigger was charged with murder, several more senior officers also faced charges, and the controversy cost the jobs of the chief constable, his deputy, and one of his assistant chiefs. Not content with that, the family sued the police and the case reached the UK's court of last resort.

I've built the article largely on books I already had from previous articles. I'm indebted to SchroCat for his help, which has included a GA review, and I believe it meets the standards for FA, but all feedback will be gratefully received. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an opening thought, certainly there must be some resolution to the civil case by now? Do you have any idea if it was settled, went to trial, etc.? Therapyisgood (talk) 00:23, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Therapyisgood, thanks for taking a look. The police paid all damages at the High Court but the family appealed a point of law and won at the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords (after the police appealed). Is this not clear from the article? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:31, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Image review

Comments Support by mujinga

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Lead

  • This is pretty comprehensive, I feel a bit more could be mentioned from the tail-end of the article. Could mention all four things the Ashleys sued on and the police officers suing their force.
    • I could but the lead is already quite long because of all the twists and turns so I've tried to stick to the key events.
  • To clarify what I meant here, the article is 35k long so MOS:LEADLENGTH would suggest "Three or four paragraphs". I think the first two paragraphs are solid then paragraph three is ok, but paragraph four is just one sentence, so I feel it could be expanded, but I see where you are coming from also and am happy to see what other people think. Mujinga (talk) 09:34, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead it's "the House of Lords (then the United Kingdom's highest court)", below it's "House of Lords, the United Kingdom's court of last resort" so maybe the second one needs "then" as well
    • Done.

Prelude

  • "The officers conducting the raid were briefed that McCrudden was dangerous and known to be in the flats, about the potential firearm, and that Ashley was wanted for shooting a man in Eastbourne and had a previous conviction for attempted murder." - I find this sentence a bit unwieldy, perhaps it could be broken up
    • Fair point. I've tweaked it.

Shooting

  • "lone officers" maybe "single officers"?
    • No disrespect, but I think "lone" works better.
  • Can you expand a bit more on what the Bermuda technique was? i can see the Squires and Kennison gives more details
    • There's not really any more to say as far as I'm aware. A group of officers raid a building, each officer takes a room, if they find something they call for backup. Very dangerous if you're expecting to find an armed assailant behind one of the doors, and setting up a position where it's almost inevitable that an officer will shoot or be shot if they find someone.
  • Yes I looked into it some more and I see what you mean. It's such a ludicrous technique I thought there must be a bit more to it, but there isn't really! Mujinga (talk) 09:34, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the police also lacked plans for the building, hampering the raid as they encountered a locked internal door which had not been anticipated, and which blocked the door to Ashley's flat when open, delaying the officers in entering the flat" - I think this would be easier to read if broken up
    • Done.
  • "Ashley was hit in the armpit" - i don't see armpit in the sources, although i am keywordsearching on googlebooks so i might not turn it up. just wanted to check because davies says chest
    • It's in Punch and Squires & Kennison; the bullet entered his armpit and apparently ricocheted off his collarbone and down to his heart, but that felt like excessive detail.
  • I think noteA could be moved into the article body, since it is an automatic question what happened to McCrudden
    • I agree it begs the question, but it's not directly relevant to Ashley's death, which is why I put it in the footnotes/

Inquiries

  • Police Complaints Authority could have (PCA) after it again
  • Done.
  • "improperly granted authority for the use of firearms officers" or "for use of firearms"?
    • Done.
  • "armed officers deployed" - "armed officers were deployed"?
    • It's a subtle point, and not one that's directly relevant to Ashley, but it appears the officers deployed without any authority at all. "Were deployed" would imply that they had some sort of authority for their actions.
  • since misconduct in public office pipes to Malfeasance in office, i was going to ask for a wikilink on malfeasance. i can see though that you don't want to repeat the same word over and over.
    • Indeed. There's a tort and a crime but they share an article.

Prosecutions

  • " outstretched arm was holding a firearm and was about to fire" - "about to shoot"? (to avoid repetition of fire)
    • Done.

Civil case

  • Infobox says "Ashley V Chief Constable of Sussex Police", article body says "Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police"
    • They're all lower case, which I believe is correct, though A-level law was many years ago!
  • "(including negligence in the shooting itself)" - I got stuck on that, maybe "negligence regarding"
    • Done.
  • "The majority" maybe "The majority of the appeal judges" or something just to explain it a bit
    • I'm really not sure this is necessary. In context, I would say it's perfectly clear what we're talking about.
  • Did Ashley's son or father make a comment to the media at some point in the proceedings about how they felt they had been treated?

Impact

  • "the 1999 Death of Harry Stanley, and the 2005 Death of Jean Charles de Menezes" - the two "Deaths" could be "deaths"
    • Done.
  • "Among Jones's" - could add Ken since we haven't seen him for a while in the text
    • I don't think this is necessary considering the sentence explains that he's the new chief constable.

Images

  • Would be good to have some more images of the people mentioned, but I checked wikicommons and didn't find anyone.
    • There don't appear to be to be any free images of anyone involved. Even Blunkett is a bit tenuous but I felt it needed something.

Overall

Thanks for the replies and clarifications. I still think the lead could be expanded slightly, but I'm happy to leave it to other commenters to mention if needs be. Changing to support, hope to see this on the frontpage. Mujinga (talk) 09:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Sarastro

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Support: This is an excellent article about a frankly terrifying subject. Particularly at the moment, it is a very uncomfortable story. I have no major concerns, just one minor point and a few questions. None of these points affect my support. Sarastro (talk) 10:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • "that, as a general rule, no-one should be for a crime he or she did not intend to commit": Is there a word missing from this quotation, or has my brain gone soft?
    • Fixed.
  • I was going to ask about other similar instances, but this was covered in the impact section; could we add a little more on this to the lead?
    • Done.
  • We mention statistics from 2001 in the Guardian about police shooting unarmed people. Do we have anything to set it into a wider context? For example, are there more up-to-date statistics available?
    • This is difficult. Police shootings are rare in Britain, but information is difficult to obtain. There are 44 territorial police forces in Great Britain (ie excluding Northern Ireland) and Squires and Kennison submitted freedom of information requests to all of them but most were declined. The Home Office collects statistics on the granting of authority for use of armed officers, but these are largely meaningless because most forces nowadays issue "standing authority" for armed response officers to carry sidearms. There's the List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United Kingdom which has major issues with scope, and I'm thinking of creating a separate list of police shootings in Great Britain or similar that includes non-fatal incidents.
  • Other than the court judgements and various statements by people involved, we don't have any "comment" on the story. Are there any examples/discussions of uninvolved people condemning/supporting the police actions?
  • Do we need some wider numbers? Perhaps something like how many police shootings there were (not just of unarmed people)? Or the frequency of use of armed officers? Sarastro (talk) 10:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • One last point. In your nomination statement, you say "Armed policing is an emotive subjective in Britain and police shootings attract a lot of media and academic attention." Do we have any examples of media and academic attention for this case (which perhaps links to my question about comments from others)? Sarastro (talk) 10:49, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your support and for your considered comments. The typo I've fixed. The rest, please leave with me for a few days while I consider how best to address them. Statistics are almost impossible because they require FOI'ing all 40-something police forces who don't like to give the information up (Davies mentions this in one of his Guardian pieces and Squires & Kennison describe their efforts in researching the book). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:38, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sarastro1: I've added a comment from Punch and separated out Davies' remarks a little. There might be a tiny bit more to add from Fenwick (I finally bit the bullet and purchased a copy because only one of the three relevant pages is on Google Books) when that arrives but barring a sentence or two I think I've addressed everything. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:23, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, still looking good. Sarastro (talk) 16:15, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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  • I was going to suggest that footnote b be moved to the first mention of attempted murder, in the "Prelude" section, but given that it is also mentioned in the "Shooting" section I think it should either be in both places or it should be in the main text -- it seems sufficiently important that a reader should not be unaware of it if they fail to check the footnotes.
  • At the conclusion of the raid, no firearms or significant quantity of drugs was found. I assume the point here is that not enough drugs to indicate trafficking were found, but if small amounts were found I think that could be mentioned.
    • The sources don't specify exactly what was found, though there was a comment on the talk page that suggested it was a small quantity of cannabis.
  • I'd suggest moving footnote c to after the word "suspended"
    • Done.
  • On a couple of occasions it seems that names of officers could be mentioned at points but instead the article avoids doing so. We don't get Sherwood's name till the section after the shooting, for example, and we get "the incident commander" and "the intelligence commander" instead of names. Is this for BLP reasons? If so I'd be curious to hear the reasoning (I don't edit BLPs much).
    • These people are not public figures and are not notable. Unlike the top brass, they've probably never attracted any public attention not related to this incident. WP:BLP (specifically WP:NPF and following sections) strongly discourage including the names of non-notable individuals, and their names wouldn't add anything to the reader's understanding. I only named Sherwood because he interjected himself into the legal case when he could have stayed well clear.
      OK -- I figured it would be something like that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • the officers involved in its planning had "concocted" the evidence and planned to misrepresent it: I don't think this quite works. If they concocted the evidence, they weren't mis-representing it -- they were accurately representing the concocted evidence. Perhaps "the officers involved in its planning had "concocted" the evidence in order to justify the operation" would be enough.
  • Just checking: is "Mrs Justice Linda Dobbs" really the appropriate title? I assume so, or you wouldn't put it that way, but it's surprising to see.
    • I believe this is the correct form of reference for a female high court judge, yes.

These are generally minor points. The prose is just about flawless; very impressive work. A fine, concise, depressing article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:57, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mike, thank you for your review. I believe I've addressed all your comments but I'm happy to discuss anything further. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:30, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Fixes look good; excellent work. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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Source review? Or am I blind? --Ealdgyth (talk) 14:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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