Why didn't Rod Reiss immediately detain Eren?

[Captain Haddock]

During Trost arc, when Eren transformed for the first time, I am sure Rod must have gotten news of a person turning into a titan (Eren). Why didn't Rod *immediately* attempt to manipulate things to get him under his custody? I know he did that later during Historia arc. But that seems too late of a response...I think, the appearance of a new titan shifter should have instantly gotten him to act. Because there was nothing more important for him, than retrieving the founding titan.
Na?

 

[requiem46]

I don't think we've seen either telegraphs or telephones in Paradis before the timeskip, and the whole Trost situation lasted hours (otherwise, the city would have been too overrun for Eren to do the rock trick).

So Rod had no way of knowing about Eren in time to do anything about it during the Trost attack. Right after it, Eren was locked in a cell guarded by the Military Police and awaiting judgment. Maybe if Zackley had sentenced Eren to death, the MP would have instead taken him to Rod, but he was sent to the not-so-corrupt scouts.

Also, consider that by this point Eren was a simple shifter. There was no indication at all that he could be the founder titan. Rod's status as the real king of the walls was kept in secret from most of the population, he couldn't create a huge ruckus for no good reason, he probably needed to be sure (and getting Eren if the MP got him in the judgement was probably as far as he was going to get involved)

 

[kkck]

I don't remember the specifics of the previous arcs but I'd think the core issue is that eren had too much of the spotlight on him to take action quickly. And then the appearance of zeke probably made reiss a tad more desperate and ordered his forces to move.... That said, I still don't remember the specifics.

 

[mattiaildivino]

No, they didn't have any time. The pace in AoT was actually extremely fast: when the Colossal Titan breached the district of Trost and Eren turned into a titan, everything unfolded in a short amount of time. Kenny Ackerman revealed to Eren and Historia, whilst torturing Rod, that Rod had kept hidden the loss of the titan until the events of Trost. Then he was forced to reveal something, but Eren's fate had already been entrusted to Zackley and then to the Survey corps, who immediately started their plan to capture the Female titan. Afterwards, there was the incident of Utgard castle and the following clash of the titans. It was all so sudden, but when Reiner and Berthold escaped, the Military police could finally retrieve Eren.