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Speaker 3: Space Jaman fourth is independ instead.
Speaker 4: The first night of the one hundredth anniversary of the
Speaker 4: world's greatest sporting event, and no birthday party ever had
Speaker 4: an invitation list White Light Welcome to Atlanta's Olympic Stadium.
Speaker 5: Well, the Olympics were in Atlanta in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 5: and it was a really big gig for us. I
Speaker 5: mean there was I don't know, forty fifty sixty thousand
Speaker 5: people every night in Centennial Park.
Speaker 1: Bill Bergman and Andrew Kastner are two members of the
Speaker 1: band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. They were slated
Speaker 1: to perform ten nights in a row at the ninety
Speaker 1: six Olympics Center stage the gig of a lifetime.
Speaker 5: We rehearsed a special show just for that Olympic gig,
Speaker 5: and every night we would come on after Travis Tritt
Speaker 5: or Kenny Rodgers or all kinds of different people, and
Speaker 5: we would play eleven at night to one in the morning.
Speaker 6: But the sixth night of their run would be their last.
Speaker 7: There was a lot of security to get backstage.
Speaker 5: They ran us through inter pole. I mean I played
Speaker 5: saxophone and the guy literally looked down my horn through
Speaker 5: the tube.
Speaker 7: But anybody could get into the audience. I don't even
Speaker 7: know if there was any security at all.
Speaker 5: Well no, I mean you had fifty thousand people wearing
Speaker 5: their backpacks into that park, and it was a ginormous stage,
Speaker 5: and they had these two caterpillar looking things on each
Speaker 5: side of the stage that were one hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: feet long on one hundred feet up in the air,
Speaker 5: and that's where they would show the videos. We were
Speaker 5: seven stories up and we're playing our set and we're grooving,
Speaker 5: I mean, everything is just perfect.
Speaker 7: And then we were getting towards the end of the
Speaker 7: set and we did an original song called I Walked Alone,
Speaker 7: And it was right after the song ended and our
Speaker 7: lead singer started announcing the next song.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, are you still out there? Yeah, that's what
Speaker 6: I'll talk about. So we got caught it to the
Speaker 6: sun comes up.
Speaker 8: But you know what, see what about now we had them,
Speaker 8: we have the.
Speaker 6: Privilege of working with this season, and that's when the
Speaker 6: bomb went off.
Speaker 7: We just froze in place. The whole band just froze.
Speaker 7: We didn't know what to do, and then somebody came
Speaker 7: up to us and said we got to get out
Speaker 7: of the park.
Speaker 5: It was instantaneous pandemonium, like the world rarely sees.
Speaker 1: Some ideas are so explosive they changed the world, but
Speaker 1: sometimes they jeopardize the very ground we stand on, leaving
Speaker 1: ordinary lives in their wake, rippling out for generations. I'm
Speaker 1: Cola Cassio and this is Flashpoint, Episode one, the Eyes
Speaker 1: of the World. In the summer of ninety six, Atlanta
Speaker 1: was booming, known the world over for products like Coca
Speaker 1: Cola and CNN.
Speaker 6: Atlanta was a bustling hub of Americana.
Speaker 1: We were the mecca of hip hop, the home of
Speaker 1: the braves, and that summer we were hosting the Centennial
Speaker 1: Olympic Games.
Speaker 4: Ten years ago, bringing the Olympics to this city was
Speaker 4: the improbable, some would say lappable motion of a local
Speaker 4: real estate lawyer and former Georgia football player Billy Payne.
Speaker 4: But pain is from an ambitious city where grand notions
Speaker 4: are not dismissed.
Speaker 3: Now has its games, and it.
Speaker 4: Also has its opportunity to find itself for the world.
Speaker 6: Atlanta is unique.
Speaker 1: It's not movie famous like New York or la It's
Speaker 1: not a city people dream of living in. It's hot,
Speaker 1: the traffic sucks, the bugs bite, it's a little bit shitty,
Speaker 1: but in all the right ways.
Speaker 6: It's a place where I just think people can be themselves.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, I found myself downtown just past midnight,
Speaker 1: standing in line and wrapped around the block with hundreds
Speaker 1: of other people. We were there to listen to Andrey
Speaker 1: three thousand play a flute for two hours, and people
Speaker 1: were dressed to the nines. I'm talking suits, velvet, kashmir,
Speaker 1: you name it. It felt like a true homecoming for
Speaker 1: someone who helped put our city on the map. And
Speaker 1: when he took the stage, the first thing he said was,
Speaker 1: it's good to be back home. Atlanta is my home.
Speaker 1: I was born here, I grew up here. I always
Speaker 1: thought I'd move away to some other big city. I
Speaker 1: tried that, but I ended up finding my way back,
Speaker 1: and I grew into myself here.
Speaker 6: For reasons you'll come to understand.
Speaker 1: I've always been obsessed with the bombing at the Olympics,
Speaker 1: the ripple effects of that summer, everything that happened in
Speaker 1: the following years, all the lesser known parts of the story.
Speaker 1: But back in ninety six, with the eyes of the
Speaker 1: world on Atlanta and millions of people descending on the
Speaker 1: city too busy to hate, we had finally arrived in
Speaker 1: the world stage.
Speaker 6: It was our time.
Speaker 9: As an anchor reporter. For thirty seven years, I covered
Speaker 9: all kinds of things. My name is Monica Kaufman Pearson.
Speaker 9: I am a former reporter and anchor with WSB Television,
Speaker 9: and I was there in September nineteen ninety when they said.
Speaker 10: The International Olympic Committee as awarded the nineteen ninety six
Speaker 10: games to the city off at.
Speaker 9: And I can still see to this day, Mayor Maynard
Speaker 9: Jackson rubbing his hands through his hair and just grinning
Speaker 9: from ear to ear. The place just broke out, I mean, screams, tears,
Speaker 9: jumping up and down because the committee had been working
Speaker 9: on this for such a long time.
Speaker 3: People went bonkers. I'm Keent Alexander.
Speaker 11: I was the United States Attorney in the Northern District
Speaker 11: of Georgia, so technically that made me the chief federal
Speaker 11: law enforcement officer. During the Olympics, I was an underground
Speaker 11: Atlanta where they had big monitors, and they had hundreds
Speaker 11: and hundreds of people. None of us could really believe it,
Speaker 11: and there was just massive celebration.
Speaker 3: Was the first thing in the morning. Many of the
Speaker 3: front page versions.
Speaker 11: Of the Atlantic Constitution had this icon on a huge
Speaker 11: tyke it's Atlanta than one of them actually said as
Speaker 11: a subtitle, city explodes in thrill of victory, which it
Speaker 11: turns out as ironic.
Speaker 1: With a one point seven billion dollar price tag, the
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta had under six years to transform into
Speaker 1: a worthy host city. The Olympics hosted millions of attendees
Speaker 1: and span twenty nine facilities, including five new venues, plus
Speaker 1: a brand new park in the middle of downtown to
Speaker 1: serve as a congregating spot for the general public, Centennial
Speaker 1: Olympic Park. On July nineteenth, the date finally arrived. Opening ceremonies,
Speaker 1: the one where Muhammad ad Leave valiantly raises shaking torch
Speaker 1: and lit up the night.
Speaker 3: I look it, Spohalid Ali. What apoment.
Speaker 1: But less than ten days after that iconic moment, the
Speaker 1: Games my home An America's sense of collective safety would
Speaker 1: crack wide open, and it only took one Southern nut
Speaker 1: to fuck it all up. July twenty seventh, nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: twelve forty five am. The music is blasting, people are partying,
Speaker 1: Everyone's enjoying themselves. At Centennial Park, Georgia, Bureau of Investigation
Speaker 1: agent Tom Davis was walking next to the Light and
Speaker 1: Sound Tower when he was approached by a local security guard.
Speaker 12: I was approached by a young man named Richard Jewele,
Speaker 12: a security guard there for the NBC tower. Richard explained
Speaker 12: to me that he was having problems with intoxicated individuals
Speaker 12: throwing beer cans into the tower and we asked for
Speaker 12: some help. So I walked over to the front of
Speaker 12: the tower with Richard, and as we walked around to
Speaker 12: the front part of the tower, we observed a number
Speaker 12: of college aged individuals scooping up beer cans. They threw
Speaker 12: the beer cans away and then basically just disappeared into
Speaker 12: the crowd. Richard and I walked back around to the
Speaker 12: front of the tower, and as we were standing there talking,
Speaker 12: he looked down and pointed to an army top backpack
Speaker 12: that was underneath the bench right in front of the tower,
Speaker 12: and he said to me that someone must have left
Speaker 12: that backpack there, and then turned to me and asked
Speaker 12: me how I wanted to deal with the situation.
Speaker 1: Then at twelve fifty eight am, a nine one one
Speaker 1: operator answered a call, A turn.
Speaker 12: Of your bomb and nail park and you have a.
Speaker 1: Burning Here's an actual recording of the nine to one
Speaker 1: one operator trying to contact the Atlanta Police Department command center.
Speaker 1: First she got a bit signal, then after three minutes
Speaker 1: she finally got a dispatcher on the line.
Speaker 13: I just got this man call talking about it because
Speaker 13: a bomb said to go out in thirty minutes to
Speaker 13: the Centennial Park.
Speaker 14: Oh lord, yea.
Speaker 1: At the time of the Games, many of the venues
Speaker 1: that had just been built specifically for the Olympics hadn't
Speaker 1: yet populated their way into the nine to one one database.
Speaker 6: So if you need to look it up, it simply
Speaker 6: wasn't there.
Speaker 8: It didn't exist, Okay, way apart, and you put it
Speaker 8: in and it won't go in.
Speaker 1: No, this is why information about the bomb threat never
Speaker 1: made it to law enforcement at the park, where Tom
Speaker 1: Davis and Richard Jewel were still trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what to do next.
Speaker 12: So I told Richard we would just follow our protocol,
Speaker 12: and the first step in that protocol was to try
Speaker 12: to determine if anybody in the immediate area own the backpack.
Speaker 12: This was a very popular part of the park. There
Speaker 12: was a show going on at the time, and families
Speaker 12: would come, individuals would come and they would put lawn
Speaker 12: chair out there, they would put spread blankets out there.
Speaker 12: It's just a real grassy knoll area, right in front
Speaker 12: of the NBC twwer. So we just started moving through
Speaker 12: that area talking to people and asking them if they
Speaker 12: owned the backpack that was under the bench by the tiwer,
Speaker 12: and of course no one claimed it. So after several
Speaker 12: minutes of doing that, the next step in our protocol
Speaker 12: is to call it in as a suspicious package. So
Speaker 12: I called our command post and told them what we had,
Speaker 12: and they dispatched a bomb diagnostic team to the area.
Speaker 1: Shortly after one am. The diagnostic team comprised of FBI
Speaker 1: and ATF agents. We're dispatched to Tom and Richard's location.
Speaker 1: Here's Richard on sixty minutes. We'recalling.
Speaker 6: What happened when one of the ATF agents went to
Speaker 6: check out the back.
Speaker 15: He crawled under the bench and with his pen light,
Speaker 15: he was laying flat on his stomach and he was
Speaker 15: undoing the top of the bag with his hand, and
Speaker 15: all of a sudden, he just froze and he tensed up,
Speaker 15: and he just rolled out of the way. When he
Speaker 15: rolled out of the way, he jumped up and ran
Speaker 15: over to the other agents that were standing about ten
Speaker 15: feet away. What really made me think this is bad
Speaker 15: is there was like a little line in training that
Speaker 15: they taught you, and it was if you see an
Speaker 15: ATF agent running, you better be in front of him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 16: I was just a rookie. It's a rookie cop. And
Speaker 16: we graduated just in time for the Olympics. We were
Speaker 16: considered the Olympic class, so they were trying to rush
Speaker 16: classes through because of course the Olympics was the biggest
Speaker 16: sports event in the world. I fell into this cadence
Speaker 16: of fourteen hour shifts, six days a week, one day
Speaker 16: off a week.
Speaker 1: Vince Velaskaz recalls that late night in the park, even
Speaker 1: though the clock just past midnight, the spectacle of the
Speaker 1: Olympics drew a staggering crowd of fifteen thousand individuals. They
Speaker 1: celebrated the day's victories and champions, blissfully unaware of the
Speaker 1: backpack that had just been found. Vince himself was a
Speaker 1: few mere blocks away, and news of the discovery had
Speaker 1: not yet made its way through the police radio.
Speaker 16: I'm in uniform. I've got a orange traffic vest on,
Speaker 16: because that's what we tried to where they wanted you
Speaker 16: to stand out and want people to know that you
Speaker 16: were police.
Speaker 3: The weather was good. I recall it was hot. It's July.
Speaker 16: I remember that, and you know we bulletproof vest under
Speaker 16: your I mean, I'm just sweating bullets with a towel
Speaker 16: on my neck. I remember being worn out.
Speaker 17: Yeah, there was a band playing. There were a lot
Speaker 17: of people, but I do you remember a very friendly atmosphere.
Speaker 1: This is Mark McKay. He was a reporter for Seeing
Speaker 1: in Sports at the time.
Speaker 3: I was day to day working in evening shift.
Speaker 17: At that time, CNN had various sports programming half hour shows,
Speaker 17: so we were preparing the sports cast, and then it
Speaker 17: started getting to be close to time to air. Well,
Speaker 17: we weren't able to get into the Marietta Street entrance
Speaker 17: to where we needed to get across to our live
Speaker 17: shop because we didn't have the right credential, So we
Speaker 17: basically we turned around and we ended up being on
Speaker 17: the perimeter of the park. My producer and I get
Speaker 17: on the other side of the AT and T Global
Speaker 17: Village stage and this explosion happens. We felt it, you
Speaker 17: could feel it in your chest. And I looked up
Speaker 17: and I could see the smoke coming above the stage.
Speaker 17: I immediately thought, Wow, that was a heck of a
Speaker 17: way to end the show. Pyrotechnics producers are good. My
Speaker 17: producer Mike said, no, I think something bad just happened.
Speaker 16: The pressure from the bomb knocked me on my ass,
Speaker 16: like literally pushed me backwards. It rattles your brain. I'm
Speaker 16: supposed to know what's going on, but I felt for
Speaker 16: a moment helpless. And then I hear screaming and people
Speaker 16: just screaming and running. I tell you, the chaos was indescribable.
Speaker 16: I couldn't tell who was who. My gut told me
Speaker 16: something bad happened. Something intentional happened. It wasn't us, the
Speaker 16: good guys that did this. It's a bad person.
Speaker 17: I remember vividly security guards at one of the entrances
Speaker 17: to the park basically just telling people.
Speaker 6: To get out, get out, get out, get out.
Speaker 17: So I make my way to the live shot location.
Speaker 17: Now the camera and the lights were already set up
Speaker 17: to go live anyway. I get to the top of
Speaker 17: the platform and putting my earpiece in and I'm told, hey,
Speaker 17: we're going to have seen in breaking news.
Speaker 5: Hello everyone, I'm Andrea Zinga at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
Speaker 5: We have had word now of an explosion at the
Speaker 5: Centennial Olympic Park.
Speaker 12: We're going to.
Speaker 6: Go now to Mark McKay, who is live at Nike Park.
Speaker 15: Mark.
Speaker 8: Hello, Mark.
Speaker 4: Our location is just north of the Centennial Olympic Park
Speaker 4: in the vicinity of About ten minutes ago, there was a.
Speaker 3: Loud, very conclussive explosion.
Speaker 12: That I contacted the command post and let him know
Speaker 12: that we had an explosion then that we needed help.
Speaker 12: I looked around and there was a lot of screaming,
Speaker 12: a lot of people that had been injured, and we
Speaker 12: just we just started trying to deal with the injuries.
Speaker 12: At that point, we're explaining in a couple of words,
Speaker 12: I would just say outter chaos.
Speaker 18: They were about start.
Speaker 15: A new song and then.
Speaker 8: You know, just a really loud, annoyed and there was
Speaker 8: some people bleeting.
Speaker 18: They were still hitting people. We were rushing people to medical.
Speaker 9: It was a regular news day. I literally was getting
Speaker 9: ready to go to bed when my phone brings and says,
Speaker 9: you've got to come back to the station. A bomb's
Speaker 9: gone off in Centennial Olympic Park. We're going right now
Speaker 9: to Mark engel Mark. What can you tell us? What
Speaker 9: have you seen? Who have you talked to?
Speaker 3: What happened?
Speaker 14: Well, Monica, from what I understand from witnesses who've been
Speaker 14: interviewed here so far, a sound tower that's where the
Speaker 14: explosion occurred.
Speaker 9: We had a lot of people say earlier that they
Speaker 9: thought when the explosion occurred it was part of the music.
Speaker 9: I mean, in today's rock and roll era you have smoked.
Speaker 9: It was just it was just crazy, That's the only
Speaker 9: way to describe it. It was something you see in movies,
Speaker 9: but you never expect to see in your town, particularly
Speaker 9: during an event where everybody in the world is watching you.
Speaker 9: City and watching what's happening during the Olympics. It was
Speaker 9: definitely it just took your breath away.
Speaker 6: When the bomb went off.
Speaker 1: The GBI, that's the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, swiftly jumped in.
Speaker 1: Retired agent Charles Stone remembers arriving on Sena and I.
Speaker 19: Heard one of my people on the radio call in
Speaker 19: saying there's been a mom a cent Unior Olympic Park.
Speaker 19: We have multiple officers now, so we jumped in my
Speaker 19: car and we got there relatively quickly, and you know,
Speaker 19: there were casual fleege everywhere.
Speaker 8: I remember an explosion. I remember seeing my mother turn
Speaker 8: to a complete three sixty, which is probably gonna be
Speaker 8: the most lasting memory out of all of it.
Speaker 1: This is Fallen Stubbs speaking to CNN in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. At the time of the bombing, she was
Speaker 1: just fourteen years old. Fallen was attending the games with
Speaker 1: her mother, Alice Hawthorne.
Speaker 8: I saw my mother on the ground. I got up van,
Speaker 8: I ran to try to find her, help, try to
Speaker 8: find her anybody. Some people told me to lay down,
Speaker 8: get down, get down, and I was like, wait, my mother,
Speaker 8: And all I could remember was looking over and I
Speaker 8: saw her, and I saw like twenty people around her,
Speaker 8: A lot of people, I guess, trying to resuscitate her.
Speaker 1: Fallen also sustained injuries in the bombing. Hers were not
Speaker 1: life threatening, but sadly, her mother, who had been struck
Speaker 1: by shrapnel, was killed by the bomb. Alice Hawthorne was
Speaker 1: forty four years old. All told, there were one hundred
Speaker 1: eleven injuries and one death as a direct result of
Speaker 1: the explosion.
Speaker 6: Lately, we've become strangely.
Speaker 1: Decent to these sorts of horrific events, with the mass
Speaker 1: shooting nearly every day, But this one's always stuck to me,
Speaker 1: and every time there's another mass casualty, it brings me
Speaker 1: right back here, asking the same questions everybody was asking
Speaker 1: that summer.
Speaker 6: How could someone do that? And why how does a
Speaker 6: person get to that point?
Speaker 1: By daybreak, the news was global and the Centennial Olympic
Speaker 1: bombing was a national security concern. President Clinton addressed the
Speaker 1: nation in a White House press briefing.
Speaker 20: The bombing gets Centennial Olympic Park this morning was an
Speaker 20: evil act of terror, an active cowardice that stands in
Speaker 20: sharp contrast to the courage of the Olympic athletes. I
Speaker 20: want to make clear our common determination. We will spare
Speaker 20: no effort to find out who was responsible for this
Speaker 20: murderous act. We will track them down, we will bring
Speaker 20: them to justice. We will see that they are punished.
Speaker 20: Let me say finally that an act of vicious terror
Speaker 20: like this is clearly directed at the spirit of our
Speaker 20: own democracy. It seeks to rip also at the spirit
Speaker 20: of the Olympics. But we must not let these attacks
Speaker 20: stop us from going forward. We cannot let terror win.
Speaker 20: That is not the American way.
Speaker 1: With increased security contributes to the victims, the games would
Speaker 1: continue with only a few events delayed. As President Clinton
Speaker 1: thank the security personnel, the media took it a step
Speaker 1: further and crowned to hero guard Richard Jewel, who saved
Speaker 1: countless lives when he found and reported the abandoned back.
Speaker 3: It was a pretty glorious time for him.
Speaker 11: I was excited and even a little honored to meet
Speaker 11: him because I had heard he was the one who
Speaker 11: found the bomb. It was so clear that had that
Speaker 11: bomb not been identified early on, and spectators hadn't been
Speaker 11: pushed away by the hundreds, that there would have been
Speaker 11: massive casualties. So all right, just shook his hand and
Speaker 11: said thank you. He was saying, I'm just doing my job.
Speaker 15: I just happened to be at the right place at
Speaker 15: the right time and did the job that I was
Speaker 15: trying to do. The only thing I wish we could
Speaker 15: have done was got everybody out of the area. I
Speaker 15: feel for the victims and their families, and I mean,
Speaker 15: this is the Olympics. It's supposed to be a time
Speaker 15: of joy for the world, and it's very very bad.
Speaker 1: While the events were tragic, the outcome could have been
Speaker 1: much worse. In addition to Richard Jewles's quick actions, there
Speaker 1: was another group of unsuspecting heroes. A group of young
Speaker 1: men coming from the Speedo tent slightly moved the backpack
Speaker 1: containing the bomb. The FBI would later name this group
Speaker 1: the Speedo Boys. According to Agent Charles Stone, the shifting
Speaker 1: of the bag made a huge difference.
Speaker 19: When they first saw the pack, they had thought it
Speaker 19: had sound equipment in it. They noticed it moved it.
Speaker 19: But the net effect of it they saved hundreds of
Speaker 19: lies because it was a directional bomb like a claymore.
Speaker 19: And what they did they tilted the bomb back so
Speaker 19: the majority of the frightened went way above the heads
Speaker 19: of everybody in the crowds and forth. If he had
Speaker 19: been left in the same place, we would have had
Speaker 19: hundreds of fatalities.
Speaker 1: Local, state, and federal authority works around the clock to
Speaker 1: identify who was responsible for the bombing, coming through hours
Speaker 1: of tape, thousands of pieces of evidence, and interviewing hundreds
Speaker 1: of witnesses, including multiple interviews with Richard Jewel.
Speaker 6: He was the hero for three days.
Speaker 1: Then on July thirtieth, the day Centennial Park reopened to
Speaker 1: the public, local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, named Jula's suspect,
Speaker 1: citing an unnamed source who was later revealed to be
Speaker 1: an FBI agent.
Speaker 21: Well, just moments ago, the FBI went up the steps
Speaker 21: to Jewel's apartment, which is on the second floor of
Speaker 21: this building. Behind me. They did not identify themselves to reporters,
Speaker 21: but at the door we heard them identify themselves as
Speaker 21: FBI agents to Jewel.
Speaker 17: Mister Jewel has been fully cooperative and permitted the agents
Speaker 17: to enter the apartment and conduct the court authorized search.
Speaker 6: Since Saturday, the FBI has questioned him five times. They're
Speaker 6: very thorough.
Speaker 15: They will do whatever it takes to catch who did it,
Speaker 15: and I will system in any way I can.
Speaker 13: The speculation is that the FBI is close to making
Speaker 13: the case. In their language, they probably have enough to
Speaker 13: arrest him right now, probably enough to prosecute him, but
Speaker 13: you always want to have enough to convict him as well.
Speaker 3: There are still some holes in this case.
Speaker 6: Unbeknownst to Jule, the FBI.
Speaker 1: Had been surveilling him and it was his behavior that
Speaker 1: stood out.
Speaker 19: Hey did he act? I of course, we did a
Speaker 19: lot of background on it. He had made statements if
Speaker 19: anything happened at the Olympics, he wanted to be in
Speaker 19: the middle of it. It was immediately brought back the bomb.
Speaker 19: Dick from LAPDHY put down a fake mom.
Speaker 1: Charles is talking about something that happened at the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four Olympics. In Los Angeles. Officer James W. Pearson
Speaker 1: of the LAPD discovered and diffused a bomb found on
Speaker 1: a bust that was seemingly intended for Turkish Olympic athletes.
Speaker 1: Days later, after failing a life detector test, Pearson admitted
Speaker 1: to place the bomb on the bus himself in an
Speaker 1: effort to appear as a hero to the media and
Speaker 1: his peers. Richard Jewell was suspected of pulling the same
Speaker 1: stunt with US.
Speaker 6: Now is Richard Jewell.
Speaker 22: The security The day started with Katie Kurk hailing Richard
Speaker 22: Jewell a savior, but by the end of the day
Speaker 22: Jewel was a possible suspect. Did he crave the limelight?
Speaker 22: After the bombing, Jewel approached the network seeking publicity a
Speaker 22: sign psychiatrist say of the hero syndrome.
Speaker 1: For good reason, the Centennial Olympic Games had to go on.
Speaker 1: But for that to happen, the public needed to feel safe.
Speaker 1: They needed to believe that they were in good hands,
Speaker 1: that the FBI was in control. By marking Jewel as
Speaker 1: the prime suspect, the FBI was carefully indicating that not
Speaker 1: only did they have their guy, but also there was
Speaker 1: no threat of additional attacks.
Speaker 17: I did do a story on the reopening of the park,
Speaker 17: which became a celebration with music and prayer, any resilience,
Speaker 17: and a promise that this was not going to stop
Speaker 17: the Atlanta Olympics from continuing.
Speaker 12: I think it's great bark pulgas to us, and we'd
Speaker 12: capable of anybody to take it away from us.
Speaker 3: I'll be watching for a package that's unattended.
Speaker 1: I'm wanting to see everybody get back in there and
Speaker 1: really prove to the guys that did this that they
Speaker 1: can't defeat us, that we're really able to overcome this
Speaker 1: and a move on.
Speaker 17: They wanted to show that this person, these people whoever
Speaker 17: did this, was not going to stop the spirit of
Speaker 17: the Olympics.
Speaker 1: Having a suspect who could quickly and neatly be found
Speaker 1: guilty in the court of public opinion. It down only
Speaker 1: checked both boxes, and this wasn't some cynical charade manufacturer
Speaker 1: to keep Atlanta open for business. The FBI really did
Speaker 1: think they'd crack the case. They really did think they
Speaker 1: had their guy.
Speaker 17: Once the forensics were done, once everything was wrapped up
Speaker 17: on the investigative side by the authorities, they indeed opened
Speaker 17: the park and they weren't afraid to come back in,
Speaker 17: and they poured back in. I remember there was dignitaries,
Speaker 17: prayers for the victims, and then people came.
Speaker 6: Back and they continued to celebrate. The ninety six games.
Speaker 2: Were confident half pay while the buds were fighting.
Speaker 3: That was a time and now order for.
Speaker 18: Four consecutive gold medals in a single event.
Speaker 3: Thirty five year old Laurel.
Speaker 22: Lewis American gymnastics teen men or women has won a
Speaker 22: team gold medal.
Speaker 3: I don't fully gettended.
Speaker 1: On August fourth, nineteen ninety six, the Centennial Games concluded.
Speaker 1: No further incidents impacted the Games that summer, and the
Speaker 1: victims of the bombing were remembered with a moment of
Speaker 1: silence at the closing ceremony. But this story was far
Speaker 1: from over. They told us they had the bomber because
Speaker 1: they thought we were safe. They thought it was okay,
Speaker 1: but they were dead wrong. No one could have possibly
Speaker 1: known at the time, but something was breaking. This bombing
Speaker 1: had a lineage. It was part of something much bigger,
Speaker 1: one spark in a groundswell of violence that would impact.
Speaker 6: So many lives.
Speaker 18: I remember where I was.
Speaker 6: This is Leah Lance, one of the many who felt
Speaker 6: the ripple effects of the bomb.
Speaker 18: I was downtown hanging out with some friends at the
Speaker 18: House of Blues, which is across the street from Centennial Park.
Speaker 18: I was really relieved that I'd made at home and
Speaker 18: left early and wasn't there when that happened. That night
Speaker 18: was a close call for me, But it was the
Speaker 18: next bomb that's the one that changed my life.
Speaker 6: Eat Tree Industrial Boulevards ninety four.
Speaker 1: It's nine thirty five and we go to Rob Standler, our.
Speaker 3: News director with a breaking news store.
Speaker 14: Steve I am at two seventy five Carpenter Drive. This
Speaker 14: is a three story building that parallels Roswell Road. It's
Speaker 14: right behind Good Old Days in Sandy Springs where a
Speaker 14: suspected bomb has gone off in this building.
Speaker 1: Flashpoint is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: I'm Your Host. Cole Le Cassio, Donald Albright and Payne
Speaker 1: Lindsay are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV. Flashpoint
Speaker 1: was created, written, and executive produced by Doug Mattica and
Speaker 1: myself on behalf of seven nine nine seven. Lead producer
Speaker 1: is Alex Espostad, along with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Stadman.
Speaker 6: Our associate producer is Wit Lacasio.
Speaker 1: Editing by Alex Vespostat with additional editing by Liam Luxon
Speaker 1: and Sidney Evans. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by
Speaker 1: Station sixteen, original music by Jay Ragsdale mixed by Dayton Cole.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at Uta
Speaker 1: Beck Median Marketing and the Nord Group Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Angela q, Tyllye, Revive Mattica, and Tim Livingston. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts like Flashpoint, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast
Speaker 1: stat or visit us at tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Flashpoint. This series
Speaker 1: is released weekly absolutely free, but for ad free listening,
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