Richard Jewell would have been excited but humbled at the Wednesday ceremony honoring him and members of law enforcement at Centennial Olympic Park, his widow said.
“I wish he was here to see this,” Dana Jewell said. “I know that he sees what’s going on and he’s proud of it. He’s with us today.”
She teared up at the gathering to honor her late husband and other heroes who saved lives on July 27, 1996, when a bomb exploded during Atlanta’s Olympic Games. She had been to the park several times with Richard, who would bring a rose to the site on the anniversary of the horror every year before he died in 2007. He was 44.
“His one regret that night was not being able to get people away sooner,” she said.
Retired Atlanta attorney Nadeen Green pitched the idea of a plaque honoring Jewell and a monument to law enforcement at the park’s Quilt of Remembrance, which includes 111 stones from around the world to honor the people injured in the bombing. It also honors Alice Hawthorne and Melih Uzunyol, who died as a result of the attack.
Richard Jewell was working as a security guard in the park when he spotted a backpack under a bench. He alerted Tom Davis, a GBI special agent in charge.
Davis, who spoke at Wednesday’s dedication, said he immediately alerted bomb investigators, who arrived at the park to assist. Davis and other officers began moving people away from the area. The bomb exploded moments later.
“At that point, everything became very chaotic,” Davis said. “I was disoriented. I was shoved to the ground by the force of the explosion.”
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
The park suddenly looked like a war zone, Davis recalled. Additional officers arrived within minutes and a line of ambulances arrived to take the injured to hospitals.
“Had Richard Jewell not been here that night, had he not taken his job seriously, had he not seen the backpack underneath the bench, and had law enforcement not responded in the manner that they did, I’m absolutely convinced that the death toll at Centennial Park would have been significantly higher that night,” Davis said.
Kent Alexander, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia during the time of the bombing, co-authored “The Suspect,” about the bombing and the ordeal Jewell endured soon afterward.
“He was hailed as the hero until he wasn’t,” Alexander said Wednesday. Days after the bombing, Jewell became the focus of the FBI’s investigation. He was cleared after 88 days and confessed serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph is serving multiple life sentences.
“I believe Richard Jewell would have been cleared within days had it not been for a law enforcement officer who inexcusably leaked Richard’s name to the press,” Alexander said. “Suddenly there was this petri dish for a viral news story before there was such a term. And Richard Jewell became a viral news story. And there was a rush to judgment and a presumption of guilt that he just couldn’t get over.”
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Former Atlanta Mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young was among the dignitaries who spoke on Wednesday.
“A fellow that I can only pray for and understand the conflicts and the contradictions in his life,” Young said. “But throughout all of this, we had the support of our law enforcement community.”
Young said he was at the hospital following the bombing, where the injured shared stories of how the chaos had been managed by law enforcement. During his remarks on Wednesday Young asked those in attendance to bow their heads during a prayer for officers.
Billy Payne, who played a pivotal role in bringing the Olympics to Atlanta, closed the ceremony.
“Let there be no doubt whatsoever that the discovery of the bomb by Mr. Jewell and other first responders, and their issuing of alerts to other people saved countless lives,” Payne said. “The darkest hours of the Atlanta Olympic Games would have been significantly worse had it not been for the intervention of Mr. Jewell and these first responders.”
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
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