{"id":8083,"date":"2025-10-19T01:44:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T01:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/8083\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T01:44:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T01:44:23","slug":"gunman-wearing-non-offending-pedophile-sign-arrested-at-nyc-wikipedia-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/8083\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunman Wearing ‘Non-Offending Pedophile Sign’ Arrested At NYC Wikipedia Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Ohio man was arrested Friday in New York City<\/a> after storming the stage at a Wikipedia<\/a> conference with a gun and threatening to shoot himself, NBC News reported<\/a>. A sign draped around his neck read, \u201cAnti-Contact Non-Offending Pedophile,\u201d according to the news outlet.<\/p>\n

The NYPD has yet to publicly identify the suspect or make an official statement regarding his arrest.<\/p>\n

The suspect reportedly waltzed onstage during an opening speech Friday at WikiConference North America 2025<\/a> \u2014 an annual event comprised of Wikipedia editors, fans and volunteers \u2014 at Civic Hall in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Maryana Iskander, who runs the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, was at the podium when the man interrupted, per The New York Times<\/a>. Draped in a multicolored flag with gun in hand, he announced he was going to kill himself.<\/p>\n

The man was still pointing his weapon at the ceiling when Andrew Lih and Richard Knipel, two Wikipedia contributors on the conference\u2019s \u201ctrust and safety team,\u201d rushed and disarmed him. Not a single shot was fired during the ordeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw the gun he\u2019s holding go from pointing up at the ceiling to sweeping down toward the room, and as it swept across me I said, \u2018Oh, my god,\u2019 and I ducked down, but I still kept moving,\u201d Lih told the Times. \u201cI grabbed his arm. He was still clutching his gun pretty hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI pried his fingers away from it, removed it from his hands and put it down,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

The gun was loaded, a senior law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Times. Police said Friday that no charges had yet been filed, but that the suspect was taken into custody and that an official investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n

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The suspect reportedly said he was going to take his life to protest what he called the \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d policy at Wikipedia, which warns<\/a> that editors \u201cwho identify themselves as pedophiles\u201d will be blocked and banned \u201cindefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

The colors adorning his sign and flag reportedly resembled those used by self-described \u201cMAPs,\u201d or \u201cminor-attracted persons.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wikipedia canceled all events Friday after the incident; the conference resumed Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Ohio man was arrested Friday in New York City after storming the stage at a Wikipedia conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101,9,24,56,63,65,64,6027,1096],"class_list":{"0":"post-8083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-arrest","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-ny","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-nyc-headlines","14":"tag-nyc-news","15":"tag-pedophiles","16":"tag-shooting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}