Imagine you're walking through the park one day and you see a suspicious backpack sitting underneath a bench. You report it to the police, and upon investigation, they discovered two live pipe bombs inside. You rushed clear the area before they explode, saving countless lives and preventing injury. Everyone declares you a hero for a fleeting moment, until everything changes
and you are declared the prime suspect. This was the story of security card Richard Jewell after the Centennial Park bombing killed one person and wounded more than one hundred. Public pressure and a media witch hunt pushed a desperate FBI to find a suspect. Despite obvious holes in the case and unethical tactics used by the FBI to get
Jewel to confess, he was found guilty. In the newest season of Generation Y, the Olympic Park Bombing, hosts Aaron and Justin explore the aftermath of the nineteen ninety six Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Listen as they delve into the details of the case, the sway of public opinion, and the identity of the real killer, who, after a year's long manhunt, was apprehended through pure luck and was found to be responsible for other bombings across the United States.
I'm about to play a clip from Generation Why the Olympic Park bombing. Follow Generation Why on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Wonder we just went through an Olympics. But the case we're talking about today, it involves the nineteen ninety six Olympic Games. And to give you some idea of what was happening at the time, the first Motorola flip phone is on the market, and the beloved Forensic Files has premiered on television. And on July nineteenth, nineteen ninety six, in Atlanta, Georgia, the world celebrated one hundred years of the Summer Olympic Games.
So a week later, on July twenty sixth, we have over fifty thousand people gathered for this free concert at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park. It's twenty one acres. The Olympic Park was open to all visitors to walk through and explore and enjoy the music. And at around midnight, the band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack went on break And this is where things get interesting.
Yeah, there was a man named Richard Jewell who was working security in Olympic Park during the early morning hours of July twenty seventh, seven college aged intoxicated guys wandered over to two park benches near the control tower. Five on one bench and two on the other. Now, they pulled out some Budweisers from a large cooler bag, and that caught the attention of Richard Jewell. He's working security, so he flagged down Tom Davis, who was a Georgia
Bureau of Investigations agent GBI, and asked for assistance. The men left the area, and after they did, Jewel's looking around and he sees a military style backpack under one of the benches. Now, of course this group they catch up to him. They want to know, hey, did you leave this bag behind? And they're saying, we didn't leave anything behind. Now, Jewel and Davis then rule this as a suspicious package because it's been left behind, and the GBI agent Tom alerted the bomb squad at around twelve
forty five am. Richard Jewell also notified his supervisor, Bob Airing.
And there's an interview with Richard who says the GBI officer was looking at this bag and moving his flash lad around and when he froze. That's when I knew this was a bad thing and they needed to call in the bomb squad.
So they clear a perimeter. While the bomb squad arrives and the bag is inspected, one squad member crawled under the bench, looking inside it with a pen light, and then slowly crawled back. According to this squad member, the bag contained wires and a clock, making a large pipe bomb. A bomb expert opened the knapsack and identified the object inside as a forty pound pipe bomb filled with nails.
So they're evacuating the premises. Davis and Erring focused on clearing out the crowd directly in front of the knapsack. Airing made sure not to use words like bomb because he didn't want to cause any panic. The crowd mostly cooperated and moved back. Richard went up to the NBC sound tower and had to tell the tech crew working there to get out. He came back outside to try to evacuate more people, but some refused to comply and stayed at their benches near the tower. They didn't want
to lose their seats, I guess. At twelve fifty eight am, nine point one received a call from a telephone booth about five blocks away from the park. A man and on the line stated there is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have thirty minutes, and about twenty minutes later, as Jack Mack and the heart Attack finish their song I Walk Alone, the bomb exploded.
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