The Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a pipe bombing attack on Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, on July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics. The blast directly killed one person and injured 111 others; another person later died of a heart attack. It was the first of four bombings committed by Eric Rudolph in a domestic terrorist campaign against the U.S. government which he accused of championing "the ideals of global socialism" and "abortion on demand".

Bombing

thumb|The grandstand at Centennial Olympic Park

Centennial Olympic Park was designed as the "town square" of the Olympics, and thousands of spectators had gathered for a late concert by the band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. Sometime after midnight, Rudolph planted a green U.S. military ALICE pack (field pack) containing three pipe bombs filled with smokeless powder surrounded by masonry nails, which caused the death of one victim and most of the human injuries, underneath a bench near the base of a concert sound tower. He then left the area.

The pack had a directed charge and could have done more damage but it was slightly moved at some point. It used a steel plate as a directional device. Investigators later tied the Sandy Springs and Otherside Lounge bombs together with this first device because all were propelled by nitroglycerin dynamite, used an alarm clock and Rubbermaid containers, and contained steel plates.

thumb|Memorial to the victims of the bombing at the base of the sound tower

FBI Agent David (Woody) Johnson received notice that a call to 911 was placed about 18 minutes before the bomb detonated warning that a bomb would go off at the park within 30 minutes by "a white male with an indistinguishable American accent".

Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bag underneath a bench and alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers. Tom Davis, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, called in a bomb squad, including members of the ATF and FBI to investigate the suspicious bag, which was leaning against the 40-ft NBC sound tower. The sound of the explosion was also recorded by a news crew from the German public television network ARD, who were interviewing American swimmer Janet Evans at a nearby hotel.

Victims

Alice Hawthorne, 44, of Albany, Georgia, was killed in the explosion when a nail from the bomb penetrated her skull and riddled her body with shrapnel while she was standing with her 14-year-old daughter who was badly injured. A cameraman with Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, Melih Uzunyol, 40, who had "survived coverage of wars in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf," suffered a fatal heart attack while running to the scene. The bomb wounded 111 others.

Reaction

thumb|The park reopened following the bombing

President Bill Clinton denounced the explosion as an "evil act of terror" and vowed to do everything possible to track down and punish those responsible.

Despite the event, officials and athletes agreed that the games should continue as planned.

Aftermath

Richard Jewell falsely implicated

Though Richard Jewell was hailed as a hero for his role in discovering the bomb and moving spectators to safety, news organizations later reported that Jewell was considered a potential suspect in the bombing, four days afterward, and shortly after a brief, mistaken detainment of two juvenile persons of interest at the Kensington MARTA station. Jewell, at the time, was unknown to authorities, and a lone wolf profile made sense to FBI investigators after they were contacted by his former employer at Piedmont College.

Jewell was named as a person of interest, although he was never arrested. Jewell's home was searched, his background exhaustively investigated, and he became the subject of intense media interest and surveillance, including a media siege of his home. The cases were later settled after 15 years of litigation with the Georgia Court of Appeals decision in July 2012, that the newspapers accurately reported that Jewell was the key suspect in the bombing, and emphasized he was only a suspect and the potential issues in the law enforcement case against him. Richard Jewell died on August 29, 2007, at the age of 44 from serious medical problems related to diabetes.

Richard Jewell, a biographical drama film, was released in the United States on December 13, 2019. The film was directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. It was written by Billy Ray, based on the 1997 article "American Nightmare," and the book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle (2019) by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen. Jewell is played by Paul Walter Hauser.

A TV series, Manhunt, also called ManHunt: Deadly Games, dedicated season 2 (2020) to the story of Richard Jewell. Jewell is played by Cameron Britton.

Conviction of Eric Robert Rudolph

After Jewell was cleared, the FBI admitted it had no other suspects, and the investigation made little progress until early 1997, when two more bombings took place, at an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub, both in the Atlanta area. Similarities in the bomb design allowed investigators to conclude that this was the work of the same perpetrator. One more bombing of an abortion clinic, this time in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed a policeman working as a security guard and seriously injured nurse Emily Lyons, On April 8, 2005, the government announced Rudolph would plead guilty to all four bombings, including the Centennial Olympic Park attack. Rudolph is serving four life terms

:In the summer of 1996, the world converged upon Atlanta for the Olympic Games. Under the protection and auspices of the regime in Washington, millions of people came to celebrate the ideals of global socialism. Multinational corporations spent billions of dollars, and Washington organized an army of security to protect these best of all games. Even though the conception and purpose of the so-called Olympic movement is to promote the values of global socialism, as perfectly expressed in the song "Imagine" by John Lennon, which was the theme of the 1996 Games even though the purpose of the Olympics is to promote these ideals, the purpose of the attack on July 27 was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand.

:The plan was to force the cancellation of the Games,

See also

  • List of terrorist incidents in 1996
  • Domestic terrorism in the United States
  • Boston Marathon bombing, another bombing at an American sporting event

Other incidents of violence during the Olympic games:

  • Munich massacre
  • 2024 France railway arson attack

References

  • FBI Centennial Park Bombing page via the Wayback Machine, from December 2, 1998.
  • "FBI Sets Up Toll-Free Information Hot-line After Atlanta Blast."