Decision to announce grand jury verdict at night devastating

[spanone]

(CNN) -- The grand jury has made its decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown last August in Ferguson, Missouri. But another verdict became clear last night, too. The decision by St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch to announce the decision at 8:30 p.m. CT was foolish and dangerous.

Here's the thing about that time of night: it's dark. Anyone -- anyone! -- should have known that the decision in the Brown case would have been controversial. A decision not to indict, which was always possible, even likely, would have been sure to attract protests, even violence. Crowd control is always more difficult in the dark.

The grand jury's deliberations concluded around lunchtime on Monday. It would have been simple to make the announcement while it was still daytime. Still, McCulloch said that he would not announce the grand jury's decision until 8 p.m. CT.
Read Wilson's grand jury testimony

At a news conference in the late afternoon, Gov. Jay Nixon was asked about this nighttime announcement. In an answer that was consistent with his generally clueless performance throughout this crisis, Nixon said the decision to announce the decision at night was made solely by McCulloch. In other words, don't ask him! He's only the governor!

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/25/opinion/toobin-ferguson-grand-jury/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[enough]

1. No doubt it was done on purpose in order to stimulate chaos in the streets, which then immediately

becomes the story.

[Cha]

4. Right.. it only makes sense.. we knew from the get go that this McCulloch should have recused

himself.. and now this.

[world wide wally]

13. Just like magicians distract you with one thing (rioting) so you don't see the other (deliberately

inept prosecution and corruption)

[spanone]

37. weirdest press conference i've ever seen. mr mcculloch was acting as darren wilsons defense atty.

blaming fucking social media ??? what. the. fuck.

[Cha]

38. And, we sure as hell didn't see that coming.. but to this Degree!!?!

[DallasNE]

39. Provocative Tone Could Only Incite

McCulloch was reckless and irresponsible -- rather clueless to boot.

[City Lights]

7. Exactly. nt

[sarge43]

9. Afraid so. Evil creatures. n/t

[B Calm]

10. Yep, I think you got it!

[Ineeda]

12. Also to conceal

WHO is creating or contributing to the chaos. I'm not a CTer at all, but this deliberate and odd decision had to have an ulterior motive. Or it's another example of incompetence revealed.

[backscatter712]

15. Bingo.

McCulloch's timing, and Nixon's bloviating, and the police presence in their Darth Vader gear, (and provocateurs too?) was clearly designed to divert public attention from the clusterfucking of the Darren Wilson case to the rioting and bad behavior of Those People...

[BlancheSplanchnik]

18. that makes sense.

When I was trying to think of any possible logic behind that decision, I thought maybe it was about letting people get home after work before the announcement.

Maybe(or not) he thought that---for the white people--

Your reasoning makes MUCH more sense.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

30. One name - Reginald Denny

A decision was made to protect people going to and from work, people out shopping, kids out and about, etc.

By waiting, the powers that be pretty much assured that the people who were out actually wanted to be there. After all, it's pretty darn cold right now.

Unfortunately, we can all see that the benefits of a night decision did not outweigh the benefits of a day decision.

Imo, an announcement should have been made the previous night that the decision would be announced at noon.

[Oktober]

47. That makes sense...

It certainly isn't as black and white as some are trying to make it...

[Cha]

2. Excellent point, spanone.. What I've read about McCulloch and his bizarre presser ..

he was setting the stage as much as he could for riots.

And to what purpose? To rationalize the decision by the Grand Jury that he made happen. Or as the first poster says.. "so it would become the story." Prosecutor my

Ferguson Prosecutor Robert McCulloch Gives Bizarre Press Conference

Social media isn't the problem," author Maureen Johnson said. "Shooting children is the problem."

CNN legal expert Jeffrey Toobin called the press conference "an extended whine" and "entirely inappropriate and embarrassing."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/24/bob-mcculloch-ferguson_n_6215986.html

[DURHAM D]

5. I assumed that McCullough (and the Governor) were

staging the event in order to raise their profile. The Governor no doubt believes he is Presidential material and McCullough plans to follow him into the Governor's office.

[Kalidurga]

46. I don't think they have any kind of political career outside of Missouri

unless they both become Republicans. They are now darlings of the tea party.

[davidpdx]

40. Cha, I've seen people on DU defend McCulloch and repeat the same claims

Toobin was dead on with what he said.

[Cha]

41. Bizarre what gets on DU, too.. david. :( Defending the indefensible.

[davidpdx]

42. Yep, it is.

I can't even be bothered to reply to it.

[truebluegreen]

3. Kind of like the opposite of the "Friday news dump":

Releasing information in a manner guaranteed to bring maximum attention.

[Ms. Toad]

6. That was my first reaction, while waiting for the release.

The only explanation I could come up with was that they must have indicted him for something, so releasing it at night would not trigger near-instantaneous violence - and the crowd control challenges that come with night time protests.

But - from the first few sentences it was clear to me there would be no true-bill.

What a disaster. I can understand delaying once you know a decision has been made in order to prepare for how to release the information in the way least likely to result in violence. But it should be a brief delay - or a delay until first thing this morning.

[LibGranny]

8. McCulloch was wrenching every last second out of his

15 minutes of "fame"!

[KingCharlemagne]

23. Wish I could recommend a comment. If so, I would rec yours! - nt

[TBF]

11. The white folks needed to clear out -

anyone who doubts this has never worked for a big company, law firm, etc in a downtown of a major urban area. I'm 100% sure there were emails going out from the city gov't to those types of businesses warning them to get their folks out by 9 pm because they were planning to close streets etc. They wouldn't have dared to make the announcement during the day because that would've interfered with the business of those companies, law firms, banks etc.

[irisblue]

16. ^^^this^^^

[world wide wally]

14. No one can convince me the verdict wasn't known much sooner than it was announced, so

in effect, they had all the time in the world. Unfortunately, they got exactly the response they hoped for. They didn't have that kind of show of force there for "just in case..."
This was all planned and at least somewhat orchestrated.

[VA_Jill]

17. I think

it was extremely suspicious. It was engineered to draw exactly the response it did......"See what you made us do?" It could have been announced earlier in the day, since it was known earlier, or the announcement could have been delayed until this morning. But NOOOOOO.......this corrupt and crooked prosecutor knew exactly the response he wanted.

[TinkerTot55]

19. Of course the authorities waited until it was dark to make the GJ verdict announcement.

For the same reason the Tiananmen Square massacre happened at night,and the "clearing" of Occupy campsites happened at night:

So no one could film, record, or photograph the brutal suppression.

[underpants]

20. I agree. I also think the wait and timing set the initial spark.

So the story becomes the crowd and not the killing of an unarmed man.

[jwirr]

21. And deliberate. The police needed the unrest to be able to justify the verdict. There was no

violence until the two police cars mysteriously found themselves abandoned in the middle of an angry crowd. IMO they were plants to draw violence, the first throw may have even been someone planted to start violence. No one, even the Ferguson MO police, are stupid enough to leave a police car setting empty and unguarded if they were expecting a riot. It was a way to start the violence.

The late night news drop was for the same reason. The police needed what happened last night. The protesters did not listen to the trainers and they followed the police lead like sheep. We are never going to be able to prove any of what I have said but that is what I think happened last night.

[Segami]

22. Its the soup-de-jour for Agent Provocateurs!

[HenryWallace]

24. Don't over think this!

What happens in November, in the mid-west, at 8:00pm at night? The temperature plummets.

You will minimize organized protest and reactionary violence by making it physically difficult to endure.

[jalan48]

25. Psy-Ops

It's used by the military and other secret government organizations to influence public opinion. We used to think it only occurred in foreign (bad guys) countries. Welcome to the New World Order.

[SunSeeker]

26. McColluch played Nixon like a fiddle.

And that's the more charitable assessment.

[JDPriestly]

27. Maybe McCulloch wanted prime time in LA. He wanted to get the media's attention as much

as possible. Maybe he has political aspirations.

What I don't understand is why Wilson, a police officer was driving alone in his police car when he apprehended Brown in the first place. And also why he did not immediately call for back-up and get it when, assuming Wilsonr's story to be true, Brown reached into the police car.

Wilson was, to say the least, poorly trained. He does not look very bright but that's just my impression. How did he pass the exams to get to be a police officer?

All that because a couple of young guys were walking down the middle of the street?

Wilson was not doing his job. Police officers should work in pairs and coordinate with other officers. He was not protecting himself and the public. He could have shot a completely innocent person with all the shooting he was doing. And what happened to the kid who was with Brown? I have not followed this closely. Did he testify to the grand jury? Did he come forward?

Again, I have not followed this story closely.

[NightWatcher]

28. Yep, why not announce this at 8AM?

They had built up a police presence and protestors standing ready to square off, waiting for hours until well after dark.

This was a recipe for violence.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

29. More people going to and from work, businesses open, people shopping for groceries, kids out

re-routing of traffic going through Ferguson, etc.

I heard a discussion about this last night on the radio. I've posted this before, but I thought I would mention it, again.

Personally, I think the powers that be weighed the "pros and cons" of "day or night" and made the wrong choice, although I understand why both times would have been considered.

[polynomial]

31. Serious street drama

My reasons think a lot of what happened was not told, plus an officer of the law being on duty is way different.

Actually what is the history or civil integrity of that area, are they like Chicago that has blue beaconed cameras that are necessary in certain areas that are known to be a threat to the civil rights of any person or especially a white person. Cameras rolling twenty four seven to prevent friction.

Very simple, threatening rhetoric could have transpired in this episode, way before the incident, shouting or the history of common street practice is something that is loaded with uncertainty in this area, verbal threats in black communities, or even slight gestures trigger serious actions…

Or especially domestic problems that are taken to the street that need the attention of social responsible citizens because of local callers that create street drama to make news.

From my view, and not being too cynical this could be a form of politics’ taken from the wars that Bush made. A seasoned Iraqi veteran could form a serious street drama or civil friction that provokes civil unrest to promote a political agenda.

Anything the mainstream media starts to babble on is just that cooked up politics via street chaos.

The intentions of retaliation are difficult to analyze, however this one appears to be provoked in-away that convinced a grand jury the police man was innocent.

[Blue_Tires]

32. They knew *exactly* what they were doing

[Paper Roses]

34. I think they figured no-one would notice the middle of the night announcement. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

35. No, it HAD to be primetime

I bet my life on there being some gentlemen's agreement on the time of the announcement -- There was a 99.9999978% chance of shit going down, and damn if the cable news wasn't going to destroy the ratings for Monday Night Football last night...

[dawnie51]

33. But McCulloch wanted a prime time drama........

the better to make his tone deaf speech and have the maximum audience. Perhaps he is looking to the Senate or the governors mansion. Or maybe he's just a racist ass, but you have to plan your announcements for when you will get maximum mileage out of them. Public safety or common reason would have had the announcement made first thing in the morning; instead we have hours of anticipatory statements until the middle of prime TV viewing. This whole farce was planned and executed just as McCulloch and Co. wanted.

[blkmusclmachine]

43. Cops can get away with a lot of mischief under the cover of darkness.

[blackspade]

44. Yep. They wanted the riot.

[Indydem]

45. Children.

They wanted to make the announcement after they were sure children across the country were home. This has been known for weeks.

Ultimately, they would have like to announce it on a Sunday afternoon, but the deliberations tools too long.

[TorchTheWitch]

48. that was just epic stupidity

So was the continual updates to the media of when the announcement would be made. All that did was cause tensions to rise in anticipation for several days. It felt just like reality tv shows that do the five minute long pause before announcing a winner by public voting... "And the winner iiiiiiis!..... {take a piss, make a sandwich, let the dog out, blow your nose...} The Contestant Everyone Hates!!!!! {wild applause}.

[pasto76]

49. Im an emergency response service veteran and an Iraq (2003) veteran. It makes no sense to me

-everything- is more difficult at night. I know the importance of when shit happens on many different levels.

the only thing I can think of, because Im not an endlessly cynical fuck like so many people commenting on this, is that they knew there was going to be some level of riot, and they were allowing time for regular people to get off work and get home before any problems arose.

that was a week ago. Having now read so much about the prosecutor, I would bet a dollar he did this on purpose