Posted on 03/24/2012 6:06:07 PM PDT by hiho hiho
Richard A. Jewell, whose transformation from heroic security guard to Olympic bombing suspect and back again came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media, died Wednesday at his home in Woodbury, Ga. He was 44.
The heavy-set Mr. Jewell, with a country drawl and a deferential manner, became an instant celebrity after a bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in the early hours of July 27, 1996,
Only minutes earlier, Mr. Jewell, who was working a temporary job as a guard, had spotted the abandoned green knapsack that contained the bomb, called it to the attention of the police, and started moving visitors away from the area.
But three days later, he found himself identified in an article in The Atlanta Journal as the focus of police attention, leading to several searches of his apartment and surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by reporters who set upon him, he would later say, “like piranha on a bleeding cow.”
The investigation by local, state and federal law enforcement officers lasted until late October 1996 and included a number of bungled tactics, including an F.B.I. agent’s effort to question Mr. Jewell on camera under the pretense of making a training film.
In October 1996, when it became obvious that Mr. Jewell had not been involved in the bombing, the Justice Department formally cleared him.
Even after being cleared, Mr. Jewell said he never felt he could outrun his notoriety. He sued several major news media outlets and won settlements from NBC and CNN. His libel case against his primary nemesis, Cox Enterprises, the Atlanta newspaper’s parent company, wound through the courts for a decade without resolution, though much of it was dismissed along the way.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Really?
Remember how many times Arafat died on these very threads? Every time you turned around he was dead again.
No they never learn.
“No good deed goes unpunished” Rest In Peace, Richard Jewell, job well done.
The only thing that matters are those facts.
You're playing the same game as Obama and the media machine.
We can but watch and hope.
Yeah, sorta like he and beck have already convicted Zimmerman. Sad. I don’t listen to either one now, ‘course I’m sure they won’t notice since I don’t buy their books or sell vitamins from my basement.
Yes, you follow a kid around, chase him in the dark with a gun. And then he jumps you. Not behind any bushes but right out in the open. And you shoot him. I wonder how many people I could murder that way.Its at least manslaughter.
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