Richard Jewell, R.I.P.

He was a likeable overweight white guy with a southern accent and aspirations for a career in law enforcement. He wanted to be a small town cop because he liked to help people and when he finally got his chance, by all reports, he did a pretty good job. But in July, 1996, in the middle of Atlanta’s Summer Olympic Games, he became, overnight, a bumbling caricature of a psychotic mass murderer simply on the basis of a leak that, in all likelihood came from the F.B.I., that the “Bureau” considered him a person of interest in the Centennial Park bombing. “We don’t need no stinking trial, or even any stinking indictment, he’s just guilty,” chanted the national media like a Greek Chorus. Jay Leno called him names on national TV and even his mother came in for some nasty lambasting.

Jewell was working as a security guard at Centennial Olympic Park, when he noticed a suspicious abandoned backpack. He notified the cops and started moving people away from the area. When the bomb inside the backpack exploded a few minutes later, one person was killed and over a hundred were injured. It was generally agreed that his actions substantially reduced the casualty rate. Initially, he was hailed as a hero, but when his hometown Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a headline touting the F.B.I.’s suspicions, a whirlwind was launched where Jewell and his mother were hounded un-mercifully by the authorities and thoroughly pilloried by the press. He managed to become a national villain and laughing stock all at the same time.

A few months later, the government finally realized that he was not involved in planting the bomb and while he had never been arrested or charged, the persecution by the government came to a close. It would eventually be found that Eric Rudolph, a dyed in the wool wacko, was the real bomber. But where does Richard Jewell go to get his name back. Where was the outrage? Think of the outcry at Don Imus for his lame attempt at humor at the expense of the Rutgers Women’s basketball team.

Since 1996, there have been some lawsuits and some settlements, but I suspect Richard Jewell would have passed on the money if it meant re-claiming his reputation. Somehow Janet Reno and the F.B.I. never got around to apologizing to Jewell. Her boss, the impeached one with the ambitious wife, however did use Jewell’s experience as an example of how rumor and innuendo can be used to sully a man’s character, meaning, of course, himself, but that was before the blue dress came to light, so to speak.

Richard got his wish and served as a policeman in several towns around his home state. He married and got on with his life. Then, ten years after the fact in 2006, Georgia Governor Sunny Perdue, presented Jewell with an official state award praising him for his heroism. It read, in part: “Mr. Jewell deserves to be remembered as a hero for the actions he performed during the Centennial Olympic Games. He is a model Citizen, and the state of Georgia thanks him for his long-standing commitment to law enforcement.” Last we heard, the Atlanta Journal Constitution still stands by its story.

Richard Jewell, dead at 44