Wikipedia Volunteers Avert Tragedy by Taking Down Gunman at Conference

New York|Wikipedia Volunteers Avert Tragedy by Taking Down Gunman at Conference

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 rainbow 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 pointed a gun at his head.

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: Richard Knipel, the City University of New York’s “Wikimedian-in-residence,” Mr. Adair said. Mr. Knipel grabbed the gunman.

Another Wikipedia contributor, Andrew Lih, stepped in and grabbed the man’s gun, Mr. Adair said. Within 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.

Wikipedia is famous for its real-time entries on unfolding disasters, but as of Friday evening it had not posted an entry about the near-tragedy, which unfolded at WikiConference North America at Civic Hall in Union Square. The annual gathering was being held in New York City for the first time in over a decade.

Other Wikipedia editors responded to Mr. Knipel’s courageous act by awarding him several “Barnstars,” the site’s official tokens of appreciation. “​​You’ve got some guts man!” wrote a user who awarded him a Barnstar of Diligence.

The armed man’s motivations were murky. But he was wearing a sign around his neck that said “anti-contact non-offending pedophile” and he told the audience he was going to die by suicide to protest what he called Wikipedia’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on pedophiles.

The site has a rule that editors “who identify themselves as pedophiles will be blocked and banned indefinitely.”

Officers took the man into custody and he remained there Friday afternoon, a police spokesman said, adding that no charges had been filed and that the investigation was continuing. The gun was loaded, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a pending investigation.

The police did not release the man’s name. Neither Mr. Knipel nor Mr. Lih responded to requests for comment.

The theme of this year’s four-day conference is “Wiki World’s Fair.” After the morning commotion, the rest of the events scheduled for Friday were canceled. But Ms. Iskander, whose speech the gunman interrupted, spoke to the audience briefly to acknowledge the contributors who had grabbed the man and the gun, said Mr. Adair.

“Richard and Andrew have been very busy,” Ms. Iskander told the crowd, Mr. Adair said. “I thank them for saving my life.”

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.

Miles G. Cohen and Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting. Noam Cohen contributed research.