So I decided to become a cop, something I've always wanted to do, and applied with the Atlanta Police Department in nineteen ninety four, went through the police academy the latter part of ninety five into ninety six, and we graduated just in time for the Olympics. We were considered the Olympic class, so they were trying to rush classes through because they wanted to get as many police officers on the street during that time as possible.
Vince Velasquez was a twenty nine year old rookie cop during the tumultuous nineteen ninety six Atlanta Olympics. You heard part of Historian episode one, but there's a lot more to it. Sure he was a rookie cop that summer, but just the year before he had also become a dad. Vince's personal experience of the bombings was something we felt compelled to share with you in full.
Be quite honest with you.
I just thought it was the coolest job, and then in the later years realized that that, you know, this is one not as easy as I thought it would be, two, way more dangerous than I ever thought it could or would be, and then, most importantly, more impactful than ever thought it would be. So I had just got out of field training and I fell into this cadence of the entire department working in the Olympics, fourteen hour shifts, six days a week, one.
Day off of a week.
We were providing security along with the FBI and federal agencies and state agencies. So it is policing, but it's not in a true sense of policing. You're assigned a post, you have very strict instructions of what to do with that post, Like your job is sit here, stand here, don't let cars through unless they have this proper identification, be alert, report what you see. I started on a fixed post and that was the controlled section. General traffic
was not allowed on that street. So that was my point that particular day in July of nineteen ninety six. I don't recall how far we were into the Olympics, but it seemed to me a ways because I remember being worn out for the long days and I was relieved. They're like, you have like four hours. I'm like, okay, I could just walk around do what I want. They're like, yeah, remember I'm a Brookie cop. I don't know shit about shit, right, I'm like, yes, sir, I'm out.
You know.
So I had purchased a brick for my son. When they were pre construction of OLYMPS Nintennia Olympic Park in preparation for the Olympics, they had a campaign where you can purchase a brick, help fund the park, and you can have an inscription on a brick.
For just thirty five dollars, you can adopt an inscribed your brick to be placed in Atlanta's new Centennial Olympic Park. Do it for yourself, well for a friend. To adopt your Olympic brick, stop by the home depot or call one eight six Brick. You know, this could be the best thing.
So I bought one fifty bucks. My son was born March first, nineteen ninety five, so I bought a brick and I inscribed it with my son's name is Jonathan Taylor Velasquez. I call him JT T JT from Dad with love his birthday three to one ninety five. I don't know why I thought, in the middle of the Olympics, with this four hour break, with literally thousands of people walking around Centennial Park, I was gonna find his brick I'm in uniform. I've got a orange traffic vest on
because that's what we required to wear. They wanted you to stand out and want people to know that you were police. And here I am. I'm walking down Centennial Park thousands of people. It was hot, it's July. I remember that, and you know we bulletproof vests under your I mean, I'm just sweating bullets with a towel on my neck. I remember getting near Lucky Street and I was going to turn right. There's where the main entrance for law enforcement to come through, and it was not
far from the sound stage. And I recall as I'm walking and I start to turn right, I probably took four five steps into the park and the bomb went off. And the pressure from the bomb knocked me on my ass, like literally pushed me backwards. It's like it rattles your brain. But I'm the cops. I'm supposed to know what's going on. But I felt for a moment helpless, like what happened?
Like what was that?
Until I smelled what smelled to me like a million matches burning. And if you've ever smelled the matches, the sulfur, Now I don't know if that was the ingredient of the bomb, but it smelled like that to me, and I realized, I'm like, that was not good.
That was a bomb. Something that's happened.
But what was interesting The bomb went off and it was silence. It seemed like forever, but it couldn't have been long. And then I hear screaming and people just screaming and running. So I run into the park because I'm figuring that's what I have to do. I'm a cop, try to figure out what's going on. Georgia State Patrol I believe was the heavy police presence from my recollection at that checkpoint. I remember seeing a lot of them
because they wear light blue shirts running around. I saw people running into the park, I saw people running out of the park, and then when I looked to my left, I recall a grassy hill just as I walked into the park to the left, and I saw a few people laid out on that hill, and I thought, wow, okay, those are victims. But then I later found out that I think one of them may have been someone who
had some shrapnel. But what I found out later was journalists cameramen who were rushing into the park were trying to capture this footage, and Georgia State Patrol was telling them to get out. And if my recollection serves me from what I was told from a very reliable source, that at least to the people on that hill were cameramen who got knocked out by George's stay control because they wouldn't listen to him. And I do recall seeing some camera equipment next to him, and I was like, okay,
that makes sense. Right away, I understood that there was mass casualties. I think over one hundred people got injured in that bombing. I wasn't aware right away that someone had died. I think I found out an hour or so later. And so basically, you know, at this point, I can't even get on my radio. A lot of us are on the same frequency, and you can only imagine the radio traffic was just all over the place. So I found it best for me to stay off
the radio. There's really nothing for me to contribute at this point. So I just helped where I could, pushing people out towards the ambulances and things. I had the requis, the training to at least help people. You know, I may not know how to write a hell of a report, but I know what to do when people are injured, and I found myself just doing that. I mean, when I tell you, the chaos was indescribable.
It was literally.
I couldn't tell who was who, although I knew my gut told me something bad happened, something intentional happened. It's a bad person. I don't know who that bad person is. I don't know why they did it, but it happened. So now I'm in defense mode and I'm thinking, well, shit, could it be one of these people running out of the park. But there's thousands of people running. It made no sense for me to try to figure that out. So I'm literally going through these and just an analytical person.
So I'm thinking, you know, not domestic terrorism. I'm thinking, you know, this is international terrorism, because what better place to do it than the world stage of the Olympics.
So I didn't know what to expect.
This is probably a foreign government or a foreign entity who are making a statement. Going through these steps in my mind and I'm like, Okay, the only thing I can do right now is help people who are injured. That's it, and let the powers that be try to figure this out. So I stayed for about an hour and I just went back to my post. But I have a newspaper article. I saw it later.
They took a.
Photo from inside the park, out towards the entrance, and it's me with my back turn. I can see my orange vest. I think my hands are on my hips, like I'm probably thinking, like, what the fuck is going on here? You know, this is crazy? And then you know we're just everybody's in lockdown. So back to my posts. You know, we weren't sure if the Olympics were going to continue, and we soon found out that yes, they are going to continue, and we're going to press on
with a regular schedule. I think I ended up working about eighteen nineteen hours that night before I was relieved and I had to be right back the next day.
If you've heard episode one, you know how the rest of the story goes. In less than twenty four hours, the Olympics would pick back up, racing to the finish line without any further issues. Unfortunately, the following January, the bomber would also pick things back up, carrying out his own demented game.
So now fast forward. I was living in Sandy Springs, my son was born March of ninety five. His mother and I were not married at the time, so anytime I was not working, i'd go pick him up. He'd spend three or four nights with me, and I picked them up the night before you know I'm going to wake up. I got all day with him before I got to go back to work. At this point, my son is almost two years old, so that particular morning I had woken up early. He's fussy six or seven am.
I laid back on my bed with him, just to calm him down. He finally falls back asleep, and then out of nowhere, it felt like the windows in my.
Bedroom were about to break. Like it was.
I can't even describe how loud this felt. It just like my whole apartment shook. In fact, I had a clock on the wall that fell off the wall. And then my first thought was down, we had an earthquake. We don't have earthquakes in Georgia. I don't think you know, I don't know what that was. It wasn't a boom I heard. It was just my entire building just shook, and my instinct was to jump on top of my son, so I literally just flipped over got ontipe my son
to shield him. I'm thinking the roof is going to fall in, and everything just kind of settles down. Well, of course, I turned on the news and I couldn't believe what I'm seeing. It was like, Okay, there's a bombing right down the street at an abortion clinic. And I'm like, well, damn, that's right down the street. And in fact, that's where my attorney, that's her office right there. So I called her.
I couldn't get her on the phone.
If you remember Rob Stadler from episode two, Vince is talking about Rob's wife's law firm, the same law firm where Rob picked up his twin girls, the one housed two stories above the abortion clinic in the Sandy Springs Professional Building.
And again I'm watching the news. So later in the afternoon, I decided to go to work earlier. I took my son to daycare earlier, and then I'm at the precinct because I don't know why, I felt I just needed to go in earlier, and we're watching the news, and I had no idea at the time that a second device went off. Now, to be honest with you, I don't know if the first or the second device that went off is what caused my apartment to shake. I obviously missed one of them.
I'm thinking gas line. I don't know.
But then we're talking about secondary device. I'm like, all right, here we go again. This is not natural. It's not gas this is bad. It's not us. It's a bad guy. But I'm still not putting those two things together. It's a rundown office building and the Olympics. That doesn't make sense to me at this time. Remember, we don't know who did the Olympic Park bombing. I'm already in the mindset that the Olympic Park bombing is a terrorist attack.
Why would a terrorists want to blow up an office building? Makes no sense. Those two lines didn't converge in my mind. It's like, Okay, it's unfortunate that this happened. It wasn't even an exercise of me trying to disprove why they're not connected. The thought never even entered my mind, Like I never even had that thought process like these two
things could be related because they were so different. I didn't connect the dots at first with the Olympic bombing and the abortion clinic until the other side lounge was bombed. So when that bomb happened, I start connecting the office bombing with the other side lounge bombing. But then I start thinking this is just two coincidental to have three bombings in a city, right, They're all intentional.
Then I'm thinking, well, shit, these have to be related, you.
Know, cause I'm thinking a gay lounge is bomb unabortion clinic is bombed, the Olympics are bombed. These three things have to be related. This is beyond coincidental. And then the Alabama abortion clinic bombing happens, and as we know, a police officer is killed. So we really are paying attention to this. Now, who is this guy is he's targeting police officers. Obviously he's got a problem with abortion. It's two abortion clinics if it is connected with the Olympics.
Now we have three deaths, and who knows how many other people were like permanently injured in the Olympic bombing. So I started really looking at you know, I'm talking this is.
Like AOL days, right, like dial up.
Internet, and I'm just like reading and at the same time, I'm like Richard Jewel, like this makes no fucking sense, right, So I'm amateur sleuthing this whole thing, right, and not that I have great investigative skills in nineteen ninety seven, but this doesn't make sense to me. On one hand, I'm like, this is all connected. It's not Richard Jewel, right, Alabama three in Atlanta. This guy's got a problem with abortion, this guy's got a problem with gay people. And whoever
knows what his statement was for the Olympics. But this is political. This is someone who has some ideological problem with certain groups of people and he's trying to make a statement and people are dying, and it's not Richard Jewel. And remember I'm talking to you now from someone who's spent twenty two years as a cop, seventeen years in homicide.
It's easier for me to digest this.
And my perception now is they made a ton of mistakes looking back at it, you know, hindsight being twenty twenty, the FBI, the ATF, and APDE, it seemed to be a strained relationship federal agencies. The ATF taking control because it isn't bombing, the FBI having a terrorism aspect of this thing if it indeed is not domestic, and then APD it's in our city. So at the end of the day, this is a homicide. This goes on the
books in the city of Atlanta as a homicide. Two homicides to be exact Alice Hawthorne and the journalists, which means a homicide detective gets a sign that case.
I didn't know all that then I know that now. So while a.
Detective is working that case, he or she has to work with whatever federal agency is now taking charge of this because of the nature of how it happened, it was all fucked up. Nobody knew what the other agency was doing, and that's always problematic.
The Richard Jewel stories is sad.
It's it's a sad testimony to not you know, this is a guy that really tried to do the right thing. But it's a testimony like some shitty police work. That's some bullshit what they put this guy through. And I can tell you as a detective, it's easy when you have a piece of information that comes your way, it lands in your lap and it helps you right. The problem is when you have another piece of information that
contradicts that, it completely throws you off. It doesn't fit with what's going on in the way you want things to go because this guy has to be it because everything's lining up. And the truth of the matter is, it doesn't matter. The truth is the truth. It's like a compass, no matter how you turn it, it's always going to point north.
That's the truth, period.
And when I look back at this case, to me, it seems like they had laser vision on Richard Jewel. And the sad part is when you have laser vision, something you miss so much else that it's probably evidence that you need to be collecting or looking at, because that's what tunnel vision is. You can't see past these blinders. Not criticizing the FBI, I don't really know. I wasn't in the know. I don't know the particulars, but it just we know he wasn't the guy, but he was
the guy for a while. If you look back at these news clippings, you look at history, you know, in a civil jury decided y'all made him the guy because they awarded him a shitload of money for that. I mean, they ruined this guy's reputation. He'd a point.
Guy died. I think he died of a heart attack.
The intersectional moments in our lives when things are scary or difficult, or unjust or overwhelming. They mark us in ways that surface unexpectedly. Sometimes it's a slow burn, other times we become prisoners to the trauma. Vince's story represents the struggle well. So I asked him, out of all your memories surrounding these bombings, what sticks with you the most.
The moment I had to jump on top of my son instinctfully, like just knowing that I have to just cover him. I don't know what's coming next, you know, put me to the point of thinking that I literally was close to this guy that killed people, Like here we are again. You know you almost got me in ninety six, and now you almost got me and my son. I mean, if I could feel my windows shaken and I'm thinking the roof is coming down that moment, I mean.
It was it was fight or flight, right, So I couldn't go anywhere.
I had to discover my son and hold hope that nothing happened. So that was a wake up call for me, like this shit is real, Like this guy's really trying to hurt people, you know. I mean, thankfully I was far enough away from it that we weren't injured, but it did put into perspective like I could have been. I could have had an appointment that morning with Christine,
Like Christine could have been an off. I could have been like, I'm on my way to daycare, let me just pop in with my son, and we could have been sitting in her office right where that ceiling caved in, and I wouldn't be talking to you right now.
You're a natural storyteller, so all these questions I had laid out, you were hitting on your own.
Oh cool, Thank you, love cool, glad I could help man.
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