“I’m fine,” he told Jewell. Jewell told Ahring (who recounted this chronology to Atlanta magazine) that his attention has been drawn by a group of four kids who ere drinking while gathered at a bench near the light and sound tower where he was stationed. When the bomb exploded, Bob Ahring was just 10 yards away. … The media said I was an overzealous officer.

At particular issue was the original Atlanta Journal article printed in the “Extra” edition, with the big, bold headline on Page 1, FBI SUSPECTS ‘HERO’ GUARD MAY HAVE PLANTED BOMB. But many of them refused, stubbornly staying at the benches near the tower. Watson Bryant now calls it a misunderstanding. Earl Casey, CNN’s domestic managing editor, defends the overall coverage. He explained that the kids said it didn’t belong to them and seemed to quicken their pace before disappearing into the crowd. The FBI’s Jewell-as-the-lone-bomber theory was quickly shattered when it proved impossible for him to have made the 911 bomb threat from a bank of pay phones two blocks away from Centennial Olympic Park, an estimated five- to eight-minute walk The 911 call was placed at 12:58 a.m., at 12:57 Jewell was standing in front of the light and sound tower with Tom Davis as Davis radioed for the bomb squad. I am going to try to re-enter law enforcement…. “Everything we have to say, we’re putting in the newspaper,” he said. Then, in the blink of an eye, everything went wrong.

Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. She is buried in Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens, Georgia. Then he went outside to help the others evacuate the crowd, He kept telling them to get back. They’re often right in theory,but when you get down to the application, something in that theory falls apart.”. Like this one, he became famous in the aftermath of murder.”, Kindred later offered a spirited defense of his column, saying he was comparing scenes, not characters. “Do we need to evacuate?” Ahring asked. The telephone rang in Ahring’s hotel room the Tuesday afternoon after the bombing. ‘”Are you okay?’, By then Jewell’s role in discovering the bomb was well known; just that morning he’d been on the Today show with Katie Couric. But I think it’s difficult for journalists at a distance or on the academic level to really make value judgments on this thing.

He was a good kid, and back in that time there were darned few good kids.”, Jewell was not a complicated person. The first thing Ahring did was send Jewell to the light and sound tower with orders to evacuate everyone. “The FBI is caught up in psychological profiles and decided he fit and jumped on him.”, For Jack Martin, the lesson to be learned is that the news media has to be more skeptical of what law enforcement tells them, “It didn’t take me long to find out that it was impossible for him to make the 911 call,”he says, “Didn’t take me long to find out that this man has friends and is gregarious and isn’t a loner like the profile,”, Jewell’s lawyers are preparing a bevy of lawsuits, targeting everyone from the AJC to NBC’s Tom Brokaw. It was the eeriest thing he’d ever heard in his life. ", "My previous comments about female sexuality were lost in translation, so let me be clear: I do not believe sex-positivity and professionalism are mutually exclusive," she said. Scruggs… Now one of the bomb experts was reaching out to the knapsack. He was placed on probation and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.

"I was asked to play the supporting role of Kathy Scruggs, who was, by all accounts, bold, smart and fearlessly undeterred by the challenge of being a female reporter in the south in the 1990s.". It didn’t take him long to aggravate the college brass, issuing tickets off-campus on the main highway and writing long, detailed reports on seemingly minor incidents and suggesting undercover investigations. The film tells the true story of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996 and the efforts to uncover the culprit -- events that real-life journalist Kathy Scruggs, played by Wilde, participated in. “Richard Jewell, 33, a former law enforcement officer, fits the profile of the lone bomber,” wrote Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz in the second paragraph of a story in an “Extra” edition of The Atlanta Journal on July 30, 1996. “This profile generally includes a frustrated white man who is a former police officer, member of the military or police ‘wanna-be’ who seeks to become a hero. Jewell told 60 Minutes that the college’s aggravation with him stemmed from their fear that his penchant for making drug and drunk-driving arrests would bring the college unfavorable publicity in the local paper. I realize my opinions about Kathy, based on my own independent research, may differ from others involved with the film, but it was important to me to [make] my own position clear. ", "The perspective of the fictional dramatization of the story, as I understood it, was that Kathy, and the FBI agent who leaked false information to her, were in a pre-existing romantic relationship, not a transactional exchange of sex for information. “He was a kid who didn’t get involved in the negative things. “I’ve seen him go from calm to angry, back to calm and back to angry in a matter of seconds.”.

In part because the charge was dropped from felony to misdemeanor, he was able to keep his position as a jailor in Habersham County and months later be promoted to a full-fledged deputy sheriff. For three days Jewell was the toast of Atlanta, of the country, even the world. There was an extreme fear of terrorism at the Olympic Games. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images). "It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast. They stood up and didn’t even take the time to turn around they just kept going backward. The same could be said for the initial FBI theories about Jewell’s role in the bombing. Olivia Wilde is sharing her thoughts on the controversy surrounding her character in "Richard Jewell.". The FBI spent most of Wednesday, Aug. 1, combing through the apartment of Jewell’s mother, where he was staying during the Olympics, They rifled through Barbara Jewell’s undergarments and carted out box after box of potential evidence, including her set of Tupperware and 22 Walt Disney tapes. He was quickly promote to supervisor of the supply room and the mail room. The two men chatted for a few minutes, and as they were about to hang up, Jewell told Ahring, ‘”I’ll see you at work this evening, sir.”. Above all, he believed Richard was genuine — a good kid, always willing to help. He quickly landed a job working security at Centennial Olympic Park for the Olympic Games. Then there was a sudden deathly quiet throughout the park: And he could hear the whistle of shrapnel whizzing away from the light and sound tower through the air toward the crowd. It was close to 1:10 a. m., July 27, 1996. We have been clear about how disturbed we are in the film’s use of a Hollywood trope about reporters... and how it misrepresents how seriously journalists concern themselves with reporting accurately and ethically.". Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Take the instance at Towers High School, in Dekalb County. At about the same time he was hired, two members of a right-wing group were arrested in Crawford County and charged with making bombs. How in the blink of an eye Richard Jewell’s world was turned inside out, 2020 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Designer Showhouse, DINES: A Taste of the City’s Best Restaurants, A taste of the scenic fun and relaxing getaways Southwest Georgia’s small towns offer, 10 Hidden Gems Worth Discovering in Douglas County. In the 1982 school annual, Jewell’s senior year, he is mentioned in neither the class prophecy nor the senior directory. They checked other likely sources; tax records, marriage records, death records, the real estate register. Even Jay Leno joked about him on The Tonight Show, calling him the “Una-doofus.”.

He was on CNN.

", CLINT EASTWOOD'S 'RICHARD JEWELL' EXPLORES FBI, MEDIA WRONGDOING AFTER 1996 OLYMPIC BOMBING, After AJC editor Kevin G. Riley sent his letter to the film's production team, he told Variety on Monday: "I think this letter makes it clear how seriously we take the misrepresentation of our reporters’ actions and of the actions of the newspaper during that time. This kid was a product of the rural South living on the edge of the big city.”.

I’d heard you were hurt and wanted to know if you were all right,” he asked his supervisor, who recalled the conversation for Atlanta Magazine. “You know my name, but you do not really know who I am…. “The guy attacked Richard, and he had to put him on the ground and sit on him,” says Bryant. This article originally appeared in our December 1996 issue. (Warner Bros. Pictures), In the article, friends called Scruggs "the real deal," and said that the film's portrayal was "complete horses--t" and "just not true. At the same time he went to work with the sheriff’s department, Jewell also moonlighted as a security guard at the DeKalb County apartment complex where he lived. There are still some holes in this case.”. AJC columnist Dave Kindred, in his second column on Jewell in two days,compared the scene to the time law enforcement officers sought evidence against Wayne Williams, the man convicted of two murders in Atlanta’s missing children case when “federal agents came to this town to deal with another suspect who lived with his mother. Unlike many of the other students, Richard would come to Muska’s room between classes and pal around, telling stories and jokes. I see that as a very frightening thing.”. Jewell went to Towers High School, in Dekalb County, and was one of those quiet students that few seem to notice or remember. “Unremarkable,” is the way Habersham County Attorney Robb Kiker describes Jewell’s five-year tenure as a deputy sheriff in that county. “In fact, when this happened, I had to think for five minutes just to bring to mind which officer he was,” says Kiker. Beneath a bench, yards away from the entrance to the light and sound tower where he was stationed, he spotted a knapsack that contained a bomb. The [AJC's] claims are baseless and we will vigorously defend against them. The four men understood immediately: This is real. More civilians,too. In fact, some of his high school classmates and teachers didn’t even realize they had gone to school with “that Richard Jewell” until a reporter contacted them.