Across the region, school administrators are debating whether to start their holiday recesses early because of the potential for unrest.
And in Clayton, the affluent hub of the St. Louis County justice system, guests at the Crowne Plaza hotel coped with heightened security precautions: restricted access to the building, and the shuttering of the restaurant that faces the street and the courthouse. The breakfast buffet was relegated to an out-of-the-way ballroom.
The Thanksgiving season — and for many, life itself — is in limbo in this region as people wait to learn whether a grand jury will indict a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown.
With boarded-up shops, police barricades and eerily quiet streets, it was as if people were preparing for a terrible blizzard and Y2K, all at once. A weekend when many had expected a decision by the grand jury became instead a weekend of uncertainty, with no word from the courthouse and confusion over how individuals and institutions should respond, or not respond, when nothing had really happened yet.
