# Richard Jewell the former security guard linked to the 1996 Olympic died Wednesday



## pahapoika (Nov 5, 2006)

_*always felt bad for this guy.*_

ATLANTA - Richard Jewell, the former security guard who was wrongly linked to the 1996 Olympic bombing and then waged a decade-long battle with news organizations to defend his reputation, died Wednesday. He was 44.

Full Story
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20498721/


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2007)

He was a goof, but he got royally screwed.


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## JoninNH (Jan 29, 2004)

Goof or not, he later became a cop.


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2007)

JoninNH said:


> Goof or not, he later became a cop.


I know quite a few goofy cops.


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## Irish Wampanoag (Apr 6, 2003)

Delta784 said:


> I know quite a few goofy cops.


Ditto!!!!

The FBI or the Fuckup Basic Investigations screwed him. I heard he was a cop in a small town in Georgia and was involved in a police shooting of a suspect.


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## mpd61 (Aug 7, 2002)

Irish Wampanoag said:


> Ditto!!!!
> 
> The FBI or the Fuckup Basic Investigations screwed him. I heard he was a cop in a small town in Georgia and was involved in a police shooting of a suspect.


You also know of a similar situation with the MSP and Two(2) persons screwed over


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## id1811xecj (Jun 27, 2004)

He was a police officer before the Olympics and a police officer and deputy sherrif (patrol) after. I have always felt bad for him.


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## CJIS (Mar 12, 2005)

Age 44 wow.


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*First person: Jewell remembered for acts of heroism*

By Kimberly Krautter
Special to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My dad called me the other day. He said, "I was thinking about you when I heard the news." We're both news junkies, so such an oblique statement usually has to do with one of my clients. This time, I couldn't think of a relevant headline. He told me he had just heard the announcement that Richard Jewell died.
If it weren't for Richard, I might not be here today. Or at least not as intact. Richard saved my life and those of many others that night in the park. I never got a chance to thank him.

That summer, I was living a dream. The Olympic Games were in my backyard. Like so many native Atlantans, I was proud that my hometown was playing host. I had passed up an opportunity to move to Los Angeles years earlier, preferring to stay here to work for the Games. I had no plan, no idea what I would be doing, I just knew I had to be a part of it.
My part was not at all big, but it became so much bigger that fateful night. I was the chief publicist for the Global Olympic Village, the venue where the world of spectators and athletes gathered in peaceful communion to enjoy spectacular entertainment and to share in the sheer fun of the gathering.
That night, I had booked a photo shoot with the architect of the amazing centerpiece attraction. The best views were from the top deck of the sound tower where Richard was assigned as the security guard. Richard was quiet, always polite, not tremendously chatty but a very sweet person. He always did his job politely rather than with the gruff nature of a typical bouncer. I thought he was a credit to the spirit of the venue.
When Richard made the announcement that everyone in the tower needed to evacuate, he was calm and appropriately authoritative. Obviously with the concert in full swing, the sound techs were reluctant to leave. He said something about a security alert, so we all took him seriously. My photographer and I were already wrapping our shoot, so when we left the tower, we went our separate ways. I met up with a visiting friend and continued to the parking deck. We heard the explosion, but it sounded like fireworks. Then we realized that was not at all the case.
Suddenly we were cast in the middle of the chaos. My job immediately changed. First I had to locate my crew and make sure they were all accounted for and OK. Then I had to call my client. We had to protect the venue sponsor's reputation so their good name would not be forever linked with this shameful event. We succeeded.
Looking back I feel a sense of irony. My job was, as it is now, to protect my client's good name. It's too bad that Richard didn't have someone looking out for him.
In a few short hours his reputation went from hero to villain and there it remained for two long years. While he was finally vindicated, his reputation was never fully restored.
All any of us ever own in this life is our reputations. It's up to us to build a good one, yet it is so very easy for others to tear it apart. Today as we live our lives at Internet speed and in a tabloid culture, it is even easier to cause injury based on gossip and loose allegations.
Innocent until proven guilty is the basic tenet of fairness on which this great nation was founded. It is the inalienable right for every person to live with their good character unbroken until they are judged otherwise in a court of law.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Jewell for reminding us of this. Perhaps we'll be kinder to each other and more careful of how we speak. I know I will.
Thank you, Richard.

_Kimberly Krautter is the vice president of public relations and strategic planning at Virtual Magic, a technology and marketing agency based in Atlanta._








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*Richard Jewell's only crime was trying to help*

By Sheryl McCarthy
Newsday

In the photographs accompanying news stories about Richard Jewell's untimely death, he looks like the truly ordinary guy he was in life. He was just unlucky to get caught up in an extraordinary event, and as a result was subjected to a public mauling.
Jewell was performing his security guard's job in an exemplary way when he spotted an unattended backpack in a section of Atlanta's Olympic Park, alerted the police, and helped evacuate the park after a bomb exploded there. But the sweet taste of being hailed as a national hero turned bitter when he became the target of overzealous news organizations that ran with, and hyped, stories about the FBI investigation into whether he had actually planted the bomb.
Jewell was cleared a few months later, and another man eventually confessed to the crime. But as Bob Steele, an ethicist at the Poynter Institute puts it, in the public consciousness the "Scarlet Letter remained embedded on Richard Jewell" until the day he died.
He became a symbol of the media's tendency to rush to judgment in high-profile crime stories, to convict a suspect based on information gleaned from law enforcement and other sources, sometimes before the person is even charged with a crime. Journalism students study the excesses of the Jewell coverage to learn how journalists shouldn't behave. And in newsrooms around the country, reporters, editors and executive producers covering big crime stories may caution themselves to remember what happened to Richard Jewell.
But the temptation to overreach remains strong. In the Duke University rape case, which mesmerized the press for a year, the tone of some press reports in the beginning was to treat the accused students as guilty. This was buttressed by the accusatory banter of the pseudo-journalists and "experts" on the TV talk shows, and by the public pronouncements of the prosecutor. Over time, through thorough reporting, newspaper reporters became skeptical of the evidence, and raised questions about it. In the end, their evidence revealed to be shallow, the prosecutor was forced to back off.
Defense attorneys constantly complain about their clients' being "tried in the press." But as Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky puts it, that's probably the wrong phrase. "If it's truly tried in the press, through probing and skepticism of the evidence, that's great. Instead the press rushes to conviction, and isn't sufficiently skeptical, so you have problems."
Among the evidence some press reported as pointing to Jewell's guilt was the fact that he owned a backpack; that he gave interviews after the bombing; that he had had difficulties on prior law enforcement jobs; and that he had received training about explosives.
I've often been struck by the attitude of members of my profession that we're entitled to publish any tidbit of information we can get our hands on, no matter how inflammatory, even though it could later turn out to be wrong, and even when it isn't really newsworthy. Instead of being skeptical of the information, our zeal to be out ahead of the pack can outweigh our caution.
There will always be a conflict between the media's desire to be competitive on stories and the interests of the people who are our subjects. The growing pressure for instantaneous reporting and the ceaseless chatter of talking heads competing for who can be the most provocative, creates a feeding frenzy that makes it hard to extract the truth.
Richard Jewell's death should remind us to choose our language carefully, to admit there are things both we and the law enforcement people don't know, not to take at face value what either side gives us, and to always get the other side.
Fortunately, experience has shown that juries are often able to decide cases based on the evidence before them, instead of on what's been in the news. But the damage to an individual reputation can be almost as painful as being convicted of a crime, as it was for Richard Jewell.








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