RICHARD JEWELL was fated to spend the last decade of his life on a roller coaster, with every rise and fall recorded and reported to the world.
Jewell was on duty as a security guard at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 when he spotted a backpack sitting unattended amid a concert crowd in Centennial Park. Suspecting that the pack contained a bomb, Jewell began herding people away from the area.
His instinct was right. The powerful bomb went off, spraying nails in all directions. One person was killed and 111 were injured. If not for Richard Jewell, the toll would have been much worse.
By the next morning, Jewell was the nation’s hero, praised to the skies and interviewed repeatedly on national television. It must have been heaven for the young man — he was in his early 30s — whose highest ambition was to become a police officer and protect his fellow citizens.
The moment did not last. Three days after the bombing, news reports identified Jewell as a “focus” of the FBI investigation of the bombing. That was in the years before a favorite FBI phrase, “a person of interest,” pushed its way into the public vocabulary, but the meaning was the same.
The effect on Jewell could not have been much worse if he had been pushed off a tall building. In one day, he fell from hero to suspect. The adulation was replaced with speculation that he was a twisted killer — a wannabe cop who staged the bombing to make himself look like a hero and perhaps get a job with a real law-enforcement agency.
But there was no evidence and Jewell was never arrested. After putting his life and reputation in limbo for three months, the government announced that Jewell wasn’t a target in its investigation of the bombing. Couched in bureaucratic language, the announcement was not so much a declaration of Jewell’s innocence as a statement of the FBI disinterest in him. In four months, the Georgia man had gone from anonymous security guard to hero to suspect and then — to what? An official non-target?
Even after the real bomber, notorious fugitive Eric Rudolph, confessed and was sentenced, Jewell remained tainted in the public mind by the first leaks from the FBI and the hasty assumptions of the media.
In the months before he died last week at 44, he remained convinced that his reputation had been irretrievably damaged by the leakers and the media. He probably was right.
Jewell’s sad history is worth remembering in these days when leaking is de rigueur in every important criminal investigation and security case and the nation seems to be knee-deep in persons of interest.
How many of them are criminals? How many of them are Richard Jewells?
There is no way of knowing, even for the investigators.
Which is why it is better for investigating agencies not to leak or speculate publicly about cases until the evidence warrants an arrest.
Lives, especially blameless ones, are too easily damaged when they are exposed to official speculation.
netloafer (anonymous) says...
This is a rather curious sleight of hand. It wasn't only the FBI that did the hatchet job on Mr. Jewell; it was also the media, as evidenced by this from Mr. Jewell himself seen on the Online NewsHour (PBS):
"You, the media, were looking too. Your cameras trained on my mother and me, your cameras and the FBI followed my every move. I felt like a hunted animal, followed constantly, waiting to be killed. The media said I fit the profile of a lone bomber. That was a lie. The media said I was a former law enforcement officer, a frustrated police wannabe. That was a lie. I was then and am now a law enforcement officer. The fact that I was between jobs and took a position as a security guard at the Olympics did not change that fact. The media said I was an overzealous officer."
"That was a lie."
Jewell did file a libel lawsuit against the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It was unsuccessful, but I don't believe it made his case against the media any less valid.
Of all the freedoms the media calls us to remember, it is their freedom to print "whatever" that is paramount in their minds, far above our freedom to be protected against baseless media attacks. They tell us we must protect their rights above all else.
Patrick Kelley can get on his moral high horse, but he is no different than the reporters who villified Richard Jewell. He and the Gazette aren't beyond publishing something false if it will sell copy or win a Pulitzer Prize for scooping everyone else. For him to conveniently sidestep morality and decencly and make the media appear to be innocent victims in this sordid affair is much like the lies used to villify Richard Jewell.
September 4, 2007 at 1:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
slipandslide (anonymous) says...
netloafer, your comment was more interesting than kelley's story. i hope you comment on something else later, i liked reading your writing.
September 4, 2007 at 4:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jasper007 (anonymous) says...
Thank you, netloafer. The Gazette is well known for publishing accounts of peoples arrest and charges. BUT, when defendent is found not guilty,. WHY ISN'T THAT PUBLISHED??? Because they have planted the seed. They have done their job of "reporting" the news. RIP, Mr. Jewell.
September 4, 2007 at 9:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
emporialifer (anonymous) says...
Netloafer - that was very well said. As I was reading this article all I could think was: he's blaming the media, yet he IS the media.
September 5, 2007 at 8:05 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
netloafer (anonymous) says...
Emporialifer/slipandslide/jasper
Thanks. Mssr. Kelley was quite clever. He was trying to shift attention away from what the media did to the way the FBI and federal government treated Mr. Jewell. I won't excuse the Feds, but I know that the various media outlets were willing accomplices in what happened. In fact, I believe they were major players, much more so than the Feds.
I believe that journalists should dig around, but I also believe they should be very careful about getting their facts straight. In the case of Richard Jewell, the media had absolutely no interest in that. All they wanted to do was savage the man. Well, they succeeded. They destroyed his reputation, ruined his life, and I suspect that had something to do with his early death.
I also believe that if Patrick Kelley and the folks at the Gazette spent more time looking into the machinations of our city and county governments, the Chamber of Commerce, and the RDA they'd have plenty of good dirt to dig up. Unfortunately, they don't. They serve for the most part as tools of our local status quo. I doubt that's going to change any time soon. They're too busy either chasing international events they don't fully comprehend or glad handing with our local high and mighties.
September 5, 2007 at 10:31 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
netloafer (anonymous) says...
I'm attaching a link to a recent edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Apparently one of their editorial cartoonists ran a cartoon depicting a young African-American girl running from someone who is attempting to shoot her. The cartoon was run right after a young Cleveland girl was murdered in much the same fashion. The paper was using the cartoon to embarass the mayor of the city.
While I'm sure that the cartoonist was culpable, I also believe that the editorial page editor (or whatever else his or her title is) made a decision to run the offensive cartoon. That person is also culpable. I'd also be willing to bet that the staff had a good laugh or two about the cartoon until the public responded.
Why? I can think of two reasons - to sell copy and to drive a nail in the coffin of the mayor's political career.
Needless to say, the public was outraged. In response, the Plain Dealer published a tepid apology for what they'd done.
The link follows:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2...
Do I think the folks at the Gazette are nice people. Sure! But I don't believe for a second they wouldn't take advantage of some tragedy within our own community if it would sell copy, advance a career, or destroy a perceived enemy.
The media, our local outlet included, serve an essential role in our communities. But, when they set themselves up as paragons of virtune and then do the things they do to people, I see it as blatant deception. It's especially evident in the way they pass the blame for things to someone else or in the weak apologies they offer when they get caught in some of the webs of contempt they spin.
September 7, 2007 at 4:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )