Wikipedia Contributors Block Armed Man From Shooting Self On Conference Stage
Molly Stark Dean/X
A crisis was averted at a Wikipedia conference in New York City on Friday, when attendees stopped an armed man from shooting himself on the conference stage.
The incident occurred at WikiConference North America in Union Square at around 10 AM. A man wearing a sign that read “anti-contact non-offending pedophile” and draped in a blue, white, and yellow flag with the same words walked onto the stage and announced to the crowd that he would kill himself.
Interrupting a speech by Maryana Iskander, the chief of the nonprofit group that runs Wikipedia, the man pointed a gun at his head and said he would shoot himself to protest what he called Wikipedia’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on pedophiles.
According to reports from a witness given to The New York Times, Wikipedia contributor Richard Knipel, who was in the audience, leaped onto the stage and held the gunman while Andrew Lih, another contributor, grabbed his gun.
The man, whose name has not yet been released, was apprehended by police and taken into custody. No charges have yet been filed, and the investigation is ongoing. An anonymous senior law enforcement official told The New York Times that the man’s gun was loaded.
Iskander, whose speech was interrupted, reportedly spoke to the crowd after the man’s apprehension, thanking those who intervened.
Wikipedia said in a statement that the conference was expected to resume on Saturday.
“The rest of today’s program is canceled, and there will be additional security as well as law enforcement onsite for the remainder of the event,” it read.
The policy the man seems to have been protesting states that editors on the site “who identify themselves as pedophiles will be blocked and banned indefinitely.”
Johns Hopkins University defines nonoffending pedophiles as “a unique population of individuals who experience sexual interest in children, but despite common misperceptions, have neither had sexual contact with a child nor have accessed illegal child sexual exploitation material.”
WikiConference North America, formerly WikiConference USA, is a yearly conference first held in New York City in 2014. Organized “by and for Wikipedia editors, enthusiasts, and volunteers,” this year’s theme was dubbed the “Wiki World’s Fair”– meant to celebrate the city’s 400th anniversary.
