The vindication of Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell was honored by the governor of Georgia last week. It’s been 10 full years since that terrible day in Atlanta when a bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympic Games.

A security guard discovered a pipe bomb and helped get many people to safety before it exploded injuring 111 people and killing one. The security guard was 33-year-old Richard Jewell.

At first, Jewell was hailed as a hero but, just a few days later, a story was printed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Jewell was under investigation by the FBI.

Across the country, media outlets, including CNN and NBC, reported the story. NBC’s Tom Brokaw said: “Look, they probably got enough to arrest him. They probably have got enough to try him.” Brokaw has since emphasized that he finished his on-air remarks by saying: “Everyone, please understand absolutely he is only the focus of this investigation — he is not even a suspect yet.”

Eventually, Jewell sued. When a settlement was announced by the Wall Street Journal, no amount was revealed and NBC issued a statement saying it agreed to the settlement to protect confidential sources and would have no further comment. Neither an apology nor a retraction was issued.

Since the Olympics, Jewell has worked in various law enforcement jobs, including as a police officer in Pendergrass, Ga., where his partner was killed in 2004 while pursuing a suspect.

Jewell’s lawyer, Lin Wood, confirmed that his client was honored by the city for bravery during the chase. “The heroes are soon forgotten. The villains last a lifetime,” Jewell told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “I dare say more people know I was called a suspect than know I was the one who found the package and know I was cleared.”

Jewell said Rudolph’s conviction helped, but he believes some people still remember him as a suspect rather than for the two days in which he was praised as a hero.

“For that two days, my mother had a great deal of pride in me — that I had done something good and that she was my mother, and that was taken away from her,” Jewell said. “She’ll never get that back, and there’s no way I can give that back to her.” He said the experience has made him distrustful of people and he rarely gives interviews. “I can tell you for sure I’m a different person,”

Jewell, 43, who now works as a sheriff’s deputy in rural Meriwether County, says he never considered himself a hero for warning people. “All I did was my job,” said Jewell. “I did what I was trained to do.”

On Aug. 1, over 10 years after the bomb was discovered, Gov. Sonny Purdue presented deputy sheriff Richard Jewell with a “commendation for his service to the state of Georgia during the 1996 Olympics.”

This time the press that vilified him in 1996 was there to cover the event that confirmed that, on July 27, 1996, at the risk of his own life and safety, Richard Jewell saved countless lives and, in doing so, became the hero of the Summer Olympic Games.

Well, it’s about dad-gum time!

Information for this article was gleaned from several newspaper reports and AP releases.