Cynics 1, Prayers 0.
According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the announcement is now expected at 8 p.m. Central Time, meaning 6 p.m. here.
Resources to help understand today’s decision:
Options available to Grand Jury:
The St. Louis county prosecutor’s office said Monday afternoon that the 12-person panel has made up its mind and that some kind of announcement from officials is expected later Monday — though it’s not clear that the announcement will include news of the grand jury’s decision.
The decision could touch off turbulent demonstrations similar to those seen after Wilson shot Brown dead on Aug. 9 during an attempt to arrest him. Those protests saw riot police deploy tear gas on demonstrators in footage seen around the United States.
Under Missouri law, the 12-person grand jury only needs nine members to find there is “probable cause” to lay a charge for it to be approved.
The panel could opt for any of a range of possible charges, from murder down to involuntary manslaughter, or could decide not to lay any charges.
How the Missouri Grand Jury process works
Now that a St. Louis County grand jury has finished three months of deliberations in the case against Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, some aspects of the process will remain secret while others will be publicly disclosed. The Washington Post asked Ed Magee, spokesman for Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, and other legal experts to help explain the law that governs the grand jury process.
Preparing for release of the Grad Jury decision
(Reuters) – A Missouri grand jury has made a decision on whether to indict a white police officer in the August fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, a killing that sparked angry protests in the St. Louis suburb, prosecutors said on Monday.
The shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, a resident of a predominantly black city with a white-dominated power structure, has become a flashpoint for strained U.S. race relations. Activists in Ferguson and around the United States have been preparing for the grand jury’s decision for weeks.
The decision will be disclosed later on Monday, Ed Magee, a spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch, said in an e-mailed statement.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has called up the National Guard and local officials have been planning a massive police presence to quell any potential violence, particularly if officer Darren Wilson is not indicted in the Aug. 9 shooting.
Nixon plans to make a public plea for peace at 5:30 p.m. local time (2330 GMT) in remarks at the University of St. Louis, a spokesman said.
The victim’s father, Michael Brown Sr., told a group of protesters outside the Ferguson Police Department that he had been told the grand jury had reached its decision but said he did not know what it was.
“He’s calling for peace and he wants people to be not violent, not looting stores, not throwing things at police officers,” said Byron Conley, 51, who briefly spoke with Brown. “I hope we can do this in a peaceful way. I just don’t want no one to look at our little town thinking we’re a bunch of wild animals. We’re really good people here.
Ferguson, Missouri (CNN) — Lately, Dan McMullen has been bringing an extra gun to his office in Ferguson, Missouri.
McMullen runs Solo Insurance on West Florissant close to where looting and vandalism briefly broke out in early August after a police officer shot to death teenager Michael Brown.
“I bring an extra gun now only because it has a bigger magazine,” McMullen says. He began carrying it after tensions increased in the area following the shooting. He says he would never use it to protect his business, but he would use it to save his life.
“So maybe I get trapped here or something and have to have a John Wayne shootout,” McMullen says before interrupting himself, smiling. “That’s the silly part about it: Is that going to happen? Not a chance. But I guess, could it? I’m the only white person here.”
Accusations of manipulating the timing of an announcement
The prosecutor’s office has told Brown’s relatives that the decision will be made public after 5 p.m., family attorney Benjamin Crump told The Associated Press.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was traveling to St. Louis from the Capitol on Monday afternoon, spokesman Scott Holste told the AP, but did not say why.
Speculation about the timing of an announcement swirled and largely peaceful protests took place during the weekend after the grand jury met Friday but apparently did not reach a decision.
Reggie Cunningham was among Sunday night’s protesters. He said he doubted Wilson would be indicted and felt like authorities were delaying an announcement “to spin this in the most positive way possible.”
“The more that they drag this out, the angrier people are going to be,” said Cunningham, 30, of St. Louis. The shooting triggered riots and looting during the summer, and police responded with armored vehicles and tear gas.
I believe that the grand jury came to the correct decision considering the testimony & evidence as explained by the DA.
Note to all:
Does a “mosh pit” have rules? Not many, but one is that when the bouncer ejects you, for whatever reason, you don’t get to come back without explicit permission.
A relatively new and extremely prolific commenter has violated that rule. That person has been wished into the corn. The same will happen with their future incarnations. Everyone should please try to suppress their disappointment.
“A relatively new and extremely prolific commenter has violated that rule.”
What rule?? You didn’t cite any fuckin’ rule ….
When you’re banned, you’re banned. That rule. It’s inherent in the word “banned.” Don’t worry, your own ass is safe, which I know is what matters.
Spellbound, it’s been proven Brown was 108 feet away when shot…
Then how did Mr. Brown’s DNA (blood) end up on the outside of Wilson’s car, the inside of the car, and on Officer Wilson himself?
I wasn’t responding to you, I was responding to Jon.
Resources to help understand today’s decision :
“McCulloch, 63, has served as St. Louis County’s prosecuting attorney since 1991. A Democrat, he is running for reelection this November unopposed.
His sympathies for the cops run deep. His father was a St. Louis policeman killed in the line of duty by a black man when McCulloch was 12. His brother, nephew and cousin all served with the St. Louis police. His mother worked as a clerk for the force for 20 years. McCulloch would have joined the force too, but he lost a leg in high school due to cancer. “I couldn’t become a policeman, so being county prosecutor is the next best thing,” he once said.
All prosecutors are cozy with their police departments—it’s part of their job. Because they rely on police to bring them evidence, a prosecutor who has a bad relationship with them has a hard time making his or her cases stick. But McCulloch’s critics say his loyalty to the police is exceptional.”
http://www.newsweek.com/ferguson-prosecutor-robert-p-mccullochs-long-history-siding-police-267357
According to a law professor, ” the prosecutor has a lot of sway in how a case is presented to the grand jury”. In this extremely racially charged incident, McCulloch could’ve recused himself.
Why should he recuse himself? McCulloch is the St Louis DA. It’s his job to take cases before the Grand Jury. If the people don’t like him they can vote him out of office. Aren’t you a fan of democracy? Besides, do you think McCulloch made up evidence or something? That he planted false evidence before the GJ??? lol. Is that the latest progressive conspiracy theory. Evidence is evidence, dude. Let it go…….
*The whole thing has a lovely Fullerton ring to it. The Police Chief has not been fired, the City Council is sitting on its hands. The City Manager hasn’t done anything. The Governor of Missouri doesn’t know whether to sit or go blind. This is what happens when no one wants to take responsibility or take credit for screwing the pooch. Public Service used to come with accountability. No more……everyone is Jody Arias, Bernie and Ruth Madoff, Rhianna, Adrian Petersen, Rice, the NFL, the NCAA, Pat Haden or Bill Cosby or Don and Shelly Sterling……lovely people all. Big Rewards? Big Responsiblity? Big Accountability? Get it? Darren Wilson needs to start a Private Detective Agency with Zimmerman. Just not working at the Ferguson PD…please! Meanwhile, it is nice to see we have another bomb thrower here in the OC…..MR. Spellbound….whatever that moniker might invoke…….knows how to use that slash and burn vocabulary. LOL. That one he especially likes! Try a few will thought out solutions to your problems of many colors bucko?
Hi, I actually have things to do other than being on this board. So I do apologize for not immediately responding. I did make a mistake, it was 148 feet, not 108 feet. Officer Wilson had no knowledge of the convenience store incident and killed an unarmed teen. Pretty cut and dry…
I value the diversity of opinions, critically questioning our positions to hopefully find some common grounds. Some of your positions are intellectually challenging. Others, like proposing to shot people to death on the spot, deporting millions of people, categorizing people as garbage or criminal invaders are so extreme that it is not conducive to maintain a productive dialogue.
(Note: Ricardo, like several others here, was responding to “Mr. S****b****,” whose newest persona now sleeps with the fishes. See the second comment from the top.)
I’m curious…why was he banned in the first place?
I have been banned from this site just for being an asshole.
You’re always welcome at my blog buddy. Your anger and hatred towards people I hate is always appreciated.
Us pricks need to stick together pal.
I don’t recall your ever being banned. Maybe you were suspended for a few days or something. You do tend to get huffy, storm off, and complain about being aggrieved, but that’s not being banned. Banned is being written in the Banned Book.
That would hint at his identity, which I plan not to do. Of course, plans may go awry.
We’ve never seen Spellbound. He’s pretty damn insufferable and in love with himself. If anything he sounds like Beelzebub from Voice of OC, but Beelzebub was smarter and mostly interested in County corruption, not national stuff. Still I think what he needs is a five-comment a day limit like we gave skally once (and Michelle Quinn before that.) They just repeat themselves over and over too much, and they hurt my head, and it’s not good when the blog owner’s head gets hurt.
I think that I have some info that you don’t, Vern. But if you want to try him on 5 comments, maybe 250 words total, it’s your party.
well show me. I think that you think a lot of people are kenlaysnotdead/nameless who aren’t. There are a lot of anonymous pricks out there that are way nastier than him.
Hey!
Well, you’re snotty to Diamond, and sometimes reprehensibly nihilistic. I wasn’t talking about you though, but the REALLY cruel, sometimes slanderous creeps out there.
like carpetbagger
No bigger assholes than you or I Skally. So I must admit that if anyone is an authority on “creeps” it’s you, me or Matt.
Let’s get an Old Fashioned soon and mock the minority community. You should see the Dia de Los Muerto alter Matt made for Michael Brown. I know you’ll get a big kick out of it.
and that DDS asshole – same guy
No he’s not. But “Robert Darley” was.
Okay – thank you – fuck Robert Darley and DDS and carpetbagger as well.
Awwwwwwe Skally that’s really sweet of you to offer but I’m married man and have promised myself to Matt when my wife kicks me out, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.
Yeah. I’d like to know who THAT fuck is. (carpetbagger, or Gattis)
No nastier pricks than Skally or me.
And you don’t think that certain people are KLND/nameless who are. He not only uses the same words, but hits the same themes, in his various personae. And he hones in on me in ways that he does not hone in on you, so you wouldn’t tend to pay the same sort of attention.
I’d love to write a post about this subject, but first I have to be insensitive to the Latino community in Anaheim. Matt and I had a good laugh over an Old Fashioned at a bar in Downtown Fullerton as we watched these savages take to the streets in Ferguson.
Thank God that the Irvine PD does such a good job keeping “those people” out of Northwood. Don’t get me wrong, I like blacks, or I should say I like them when they are serving me.
Gotta go! Matt invited me over for Thanksgiving and instead of turkey we’re having crow. Ahhh the irony.
there should be no rules and nobody should be banned, with the exception of those who commit artistic malfeasance. the internet is supposed to be for the people and regardless of how much work greg and vern put into maintaining this site, providing ideas and access and doing all the things that nobody else wants to do to keep this site well groomed and viable, anybody should be able to come onto this site, trash it, depict it as something it is not and insult and annoy everybody else without fear of banishment or social repercussions. anything else is tyranny
As long as you are attacking Diamond, Vern, Pedroza, Mills, Choi, Lalloway, Tait, minorities and everyone else I hate, you should be able to post whatever you want.
Are you volunteering for the Assistant Managing Editor position, tdm?
I volunteer my time for all sorts of administrative purposes to help bring you this blog. It’s unreasonable for you to expect that that obligates me to spend hours dealing with assholes dealing in bad faith.
Yours in continued enlightened tyranny, &c.
Don’t steal. Don’t rough up the store proprietor when you do. Don’t walk down the middle of the street. Don’t defy a cop when he orders you to get out of the street. Choose to ignore this advice and bad things could happen. Why is this hard to understand?
And it’s just fine with you if a cop, who works for us, just goes ahead and needlessly kills someone. You’re okay with that? THAT’S hard to understand.
if it is in the barrio, the ghetto or little saigon, is it really any of our concern. what I keep hearing is that they do not want cops in their neighborhoods unless and until there is an incident and then they want justice but only if justice is defined as not arresting the black or brown individual who committed the crime.
It wasn’t needlessly – he went for the cops gun – he charged the cop – black witnesses said so.
I don’t think anybody is arguing that cops should be allowed to kill indiscriminately.
However if a cop is attacked, they have a right to defend themselves.
Attacking an armed person pretty much never turns out well.
Where cops can kill with impunity — their version taken as gospel, among other things — they can indeed kill indiscriminately, at least in one-on-one situations. Of course, killing some people, like the children of the city’s movers and shakers, would be a bad career move. I guess that they really need “safe words.”
If a cop is acting outside of the law — say, if he did reach out and strangle Michael Brown for not following his order not to walk in the street, does Michael Brown have a right to defend himself? Given that he knows that the cop won’t be punished even if he breaks the kid’s windpipe, doesn’t it seem like he should?
Attacking an armed person who intends to kill you has a better chance of succeeding than doing nothing. Second Amendment, right? And “Run from a knife, rush a gun”?
“I think what he needs is a five-comment a day limit like we gave skally once ..”
yeah …. and I boycotted you rather than be subject to your arbitrary censorship ….
You boycotted because fundamentally you are here to express your views rather than to cause trouble. That guy would not boycott. He’d just continue trying to cause as much trouble as possible. Any trouble is good trouble. No thanks.
Agree
If being an asshole prick is a way of expressing ones view sign me and Skally up.
This whole thing is/was being over sensationalized by the media.
Take away CNN and so goes the “protesters”.
You’ve sure have a way with words Skally. Me and Matt are thinking of starting a blog of our own and could use an intelligent wordsmith such as yourself.
Is it the president’s fault?
He send his hand pick team from the FBI and the attorney generals office to determine if the officer committed a crime.
All three investigations came to the same conclusion.
Vern, your use of the word “needlessly” is at the core of the issue – I wonder if we will ever realy know if it was a needless shooting or self-defense in a life threatening assault.. Maybe the federal DOJ investigation will shed some new light. I know one thing – I am glad I am not a cop sent out to confront such a situation, even with great pay and benefits .