{"id":474,"date":"2007-08-29T21:31:56","date_gmt":"2007-08-30T01:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/08\/29\/remember-richard-jewell\/"},"modified":"2007-08-29T21:31:56","modified_gmt":"2007-08-30T01:31:56","slug":"remember-richard-jewell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2007\/08\/29\/remember-richard-jewell\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember Richard Jewell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Jewell, wrongly implicated in the bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, died today<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Jewell, who was working as a sheriff’s deputy as recently as last year, was a security guard in 1996 at the Olympics in Atlanta. He was initially hailed as a hero for spotting a suspicious backpack in a park and moving people out of harm’s way just before a bomb exploded during a concert.<\/p>\n

The blast killed one and injured 111 others.<\/p>\n

Three days after the bombing, an unattributed report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described him as ”the focus” of the investigation.<\/p>\n

Other media, to varying degrees, also linked Jewell to the investigation and portrayed him as a loser and law-enforcement wannabe who may have planted the bomb so he would look like a hero when he discovered it later.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I lived less than a mile from the bomb site, and had left the actual site only a couple of hours before the bomb exploded.\u00c2\u00a0 Like everyone else in Atlanta at the time, I was intensely focused on it.\u00c2\u00a0 And, also like everyone else, I soon became damn sure that Richard Jewell had done it, after listening to and reading all the reports.\u00c2\u00a0 Except:<\/p>\n

Eventually, the bomber turned out to be anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph<\/a>, who also planted three other bombs in the Atlanta area and in Birmingham, Ala. Those explosives killed a police officer, maimed a nurse and injured several other people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember this, the next time you just “know” that someone did something.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sorry, Mr. Jewell.\u00c2\u00a0 We did you wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Jewell, wrongly implicated in the bombing of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, died today: Jewell, who was working as a sheriff’s deputy as recently as last year, was a security guard in 1996 at the Olympics in Atlanta. He was initially hailed as a hero for spotting a suspicious backpack in a park and moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t