Atlanta, Ten Years Ago Today

July 27, 2006 7:28 AM

"There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes." Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. Initial (and unwarranted) suspicions notwithstanding, the July 27th bombing would prove to be just the first of four such acts of domestic terrorism committed by 5-year fugitive Eric Robert Rudolph.
posted by grabbingsand (23 comments total)

My son and I were in that exact spot 24 hours before.
posted by mischief at 7:35 AM on July 27, 2006

According to some reports, Rudolph supplemented his income considerably by growing marijuana in the woods, increasing his already considerable familiarity with the western North Carolina wilderness.

Hey, doing drugs DOES help the terrorists...
posted by Pastabagel at 8:04 AM on July 27, 2006

George W. Bush: The candidate all of America's home grown terrorists voted for.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:23 AM on July 27, 2006

I left the park 20 minutes before the blast. Drove some of my reporters back to their hotel. We were eating a midnight breakfast at the Waffle House when we heard the first radio report. The next 24 hours was just plain sad.

Centennial Park was an all-night party during the Olympics up to the 27th. We would file our last story and go down there to party. Don't know what kept us from doing it that night, though.

My prayers to the Hawthorne family and the others injured, and here's hoping Rudolph is bored to tears right now staring at the wall at his little cell in Colorado.
posted by darren at 8:26 AM on July 27, 2006

I was standing next to the SWATCH WATCH tent about 200 yards from the explosion...scary stuff.
posted by jckll at 8:58 AM on July 27, 2006

Oh, fancy that, I just checked the map. I was about at Marietta Street and Nassau, which is the 2nd street to the right of Marietta giong North/South
posted by jckll at 9:02 AM on July 27, 2006

We left the park about 40 minutes before the bomb went off... rode home on the train, turned on the TV, and saw it all over the news. That was creepy as hell.

A friend of mine was close enough to the blast that he says his ears were ringing for hours afterward.
posted by BoringPostcards at 9:08 AM on July 27, 2006

Wonder how many Richard Jewell types have been swept up in our "war on terrorism."
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 9:14 AM on July 27, 2006

I was at home in my Sandy Springs apartment, the first apartment of many over my years in Atlanta. I was in bed. At 1:30am, the phone rings.

Apparently, another relative called my parents about the blast, waking them. So they called me.

"Are you okay?"
posted by grabbingsand at 9:44 AM on July 27, 2006

Wonder how many Richard Jewell types have been swept up in our "war on terrorism."

All of them. Plus a few terrorists. But we'll never know who fits into what group.
posted by psmealey at 9:55 AM on July 27, 2006

Wonder how many Richard Jewell types have been swept up in our "war on terrorism."

Richard Jewell wasn't swept up in a war on terrorism. IIFC, the Clinton administration didn't consider Eric Rudolph an enemy combatant, nor did they launch an invasion of Alabama, secretly tap phone lines, or anything like that.

Rudolph, like Timothy McVeigh were treated like the criminals that they were, pursued by law enforcement, caught, charged, fairly tried, and lawfully executed.

It can be done. Pity the Bush administration has never tried.
posted by three blind mice at 10:12 AM on July 27, 2006

Amen, 3bm, I would also add the following names to that list:

Ramzi Yousef,
Eyad Ismoil,
Ahmad Ajaj,
Mahmoud Abouhalima
Omar Abdel Rahman.

All of these men (and a couple others) were tried, convicted and emprisoned using constitution and diplomatic means for their complicity in the 1993 attack on the WTC.
posted by psmealey at 10:36 AM on July 27, 2006

The FBI (f*cking bungling idiots?) spent years and millions trying to capture Rudolph.
No luck.
It took a rookie TVA police officer to capture him. Singlehandedly.

Right wing nuts are not terrorists, only brown skinned people with different religious beliefs!
We more recently had the guy from Texas with a very large cyanide bomb.
Was he charged with terrorism?
No.
He was a right wing nut, kinda like Rudolph.

And where's the anthrax guy?
Huh?
Oh yeah, he targeted the "enemies" of the right wing nuts, didn't he?

Slippery devils, these right wing nuts!

( And where's Osama?
Yeah, he hates them damn godless liberals too!)
posted by nofundy at 10:48 AM on July 27, 2006

If I recall correctly, didn't this case spawn the now-ubiquitous phrase "person of interest?"
posted by Banky_Edwards at 10:54 AM on July 27, 2006

Rudolph, like Timothy McVeigh were treated like the criminals that they were, pursued by law enforcement, caught, charged, fairly tried, and lawfully executed.

Rudolph was sentenced to life in Supermax, but point taken.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:00 AM on July 27, 2006

Wonder how many Richard Jewell types have been swept up in our "war on terrorism."
I am still waiting not only for the public apology that Richard Jewell so richly deserves but also the Congressional Medal (or whatever) and public thanks that he should have received for quick thinking and exactly appropriate response that almost certainly saved many lives and serious injuries.
posted by flug at 11:02 AM on July 27, 2006

"'Krar had weapons that were capable of killing just as many people as died on September 11,' said Mark Potok, editor of The Intelligence Report, an SPLC newsletter. 'They are a reminder that all terrorists do not come from abroad. Some of the scariest ones are 100 per cent, red-blooded Americans.'"
posted by homunculus at 12:25 PM on July 27, 2006

Those transcripts certainly point to the shining infrastructure and safety net, standing on guard, that we'll all able to rely on the next time America is attacked... oh, wait.
posted by blacklite at 1:47 PM on July 27, 2006

An interesting and lengthy story in today's Creative Loafing on the topic.

I was in the basement of the Star Bar at the time. Same place I was when the torch relay came through town, now that I think about it. Hmmm.... I guess I used to spend a lot of time at the Star Bar.
posted by spilon at 2:07 PM on July 27, 2006

We were supposed to have gone to Centennial Park that night -- for some reason my friend bailed at the last minute.

Freaky thing to know that's where you were planning to be and then seeing it plastered all over the news.
posted by Medieval Maven at 2:46 PM on July 27, 2006

Ah, the Star Bar, a great place for a married couple to pick up women!
posted by mischief at 3:35 PM on July 27, 2006

If I recall correctly, didn't this case spawn the now-ubiquitous phrase "person of interest?"

The term certainly isn't new. It dates back at least to the 1970s, when it appeared in a New York Times article describing the government's plans to compile information on various "persons of interest."

But most agree that the term's popularity increased in 1996, after investigators and reporters named Atlanta security guard Richard Jewell as potentially responsible for the Olympic Park bombing. -- St. Pete Times
posted by dhartung at 6:29 PM on July 27, 2006

There should be a statue of Jewell in Centennial Olympic Park and the Atlanta Journal Constitution should pay for it, after their disgraceful treatment of him.
posted by Scoo at 8:47 PM on July 27, 2006