Moments before it was announced Monday that a grand jury had a decision over whether to indict Darren Wilson, the law enforcement agent at the center of the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown of Ferguson, Mo., numerous media outlets reported that the police officer had married last month.
And that’s the story: Wilson applied for a marriage license and was wed in late in October.
“Records show that Officer Wilson, 28, and Officer Spradling, 37, were married on Oct. 24. One of the two witnesses at the ceremony was Greg Kloeppel, one of Officer Wilson’s lawyers. Christopher B. Graville, a municipal judge in Oakland, Mo., performed the ceremony,” the New York Times was first to report Monday in an article titled, “A Quiet Wedding for Darren Wilson.”
“Both Officer Wilson and Officer Spradling were previously married, public records indicate. His divorce was finalized on Nov. 10, 2013,” the report added.
Media groups eager for news out of the small Missouri town followed the New York Times’ lead, some of them reposting an Associated Press report on the topic, some of them aggregating the New York Times article and some of them merely tweeting an image of Wilson’s marriage license:
Ferguson officer quietly married 2 months after he shot Michael Brown http://t.co/v609fEcJZc
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) November 24, 2014
Darren Wilson quietly married last month: http://t.co/zwyEyZrw8U (Photo: City of Ferguson/AP) pic.twitter.com/NVzAe1yf69
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 24, 2014
NEW: Darren Wilson, who faces possible indictment by grand jury in shooting of Michael Brown, got married in October. pic.twitter.com/9atDab7l20
— ABC News (@ABC) November 24, 2014
NEW: Darren Wilson, who faces possible indictment by grand jury in shooting of Michael Brown, got married in October. pic.twitter.com/NmaiPWSSUZ
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 24, 2014
Darren Wilson secretly got married “steps away from the courthouse where the grand jury has been meeting” http://t.co/pOfZsVPRca #Ferguson
— Salon (@Salon) November 24, 2014
multiple news reports: #Ferguson Officer Darren #Wilson married to another officer pic.twitter.com/ursteN5ebw
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) November 24, 2014
Report: Cop who faces possible indictment in an unarmed teenager’s shooting death got married. http://t.co/N9aMiKGafo pic.twitter.com/df426Ka7A1
— AJC (@ajc) November 24, 2014
The media groups contacted by the Washington Examiner and asked for comment on the newsworthiness of the marriage report have not responded.
