Olympic Games 1996

Now that the satellite trucks are gone from Richard Jewell's street and the microphones are packed off to some newer emergency than this summer's Olympic bombing, a crucial question remains for the media: How do you unmake a villain? Jewell, a 33-year-old security guard, spent nearly three months as an international pariah after the Atlanta Journal came out with an extra edition July 30 naming him as the "focus" of the FBI's bombing investigation.

Someone from a TV network called last weekend about getting together a panel on "whether the media jumped the gun" in the Richard Jewell case. Whether they jumped the gun? That's like asking if the Japanese were hasty in bombing Pearl Harbor. The smear attack on Jewell also should live in infamy.

Alternately weepy and admonishing, Richard Jewell willingly faced a barrage of television cameras for the first time Monday, describing the "nightmare" of the last three months and lashing out at the FBI and the news media, which he said almost destroyed his life. The 33-year-old security guard was cleared of suspicion by the Justice Department over the weekend in the July 27 pipe bomb explosion in Centennial Olympic Park.

This was the year I saw a man lynched, and not with a rope. The man in question is Richard Jewell, 33, who was officially cleared Saturday as a suspect in the July 27 pipe-bomb blast during the Atlanta Olympics that left two people dead and terrified thousands more. I don't know if O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife, or if Timothy McVeigh blew up that Oklahoma City office building, or if Theodore J.

Three months after a pipe bomb shot fiery shrapnel through the revelry of the Olympic Games, the Justice Department on Saturday formally cleared security guard Richard Jewell as a suspect. The move first surfaced in a letter from U.S. Atty. Kent Alexander to Jewell's lawyer. It came after weeks of mounting signs that the FBI lacked evidence linking Jewell, the only named suspect, to the attack in Centennial Olympic Park that killed one woman and injured more than 100.

A federal judge, who says he believes that Richard Jewell is no longer a suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, has ordered officials to release sealed documents showing why the former security guard fell under suspicion in the first place. U.S. District Judge Owen Forrester gave the Justice Department one week to challenge his order in a higher court or unseal FBI affidavits used to obtain warrants to search Jewell's property.

Federal authorities are considering removing Richard Jewell as an active suspect in the Atlanta Olympics bombing case, say Jewell's attorney and law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation.

The battery that was likely used to detonate the bomb at Centennial Olympic Park came from a South Florida hardware chain, Atlanta television station WXIA reported Thursday. The 12-volt battery, a type commonly used for lanterns, was in a shipment of 24 batteries delivered to the Sewell Hardware chain earlier this year, owner Worley Sewell told the television station. The battery was tracked to the West Palm Beach, Fla.-based chain by its lot number.

Richard Jewell will see edited copies of sealed court documents from the FBI that detail how the security guard became a suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. A federal magistrate ordered the government to produce the material to Jewell and his lawyers by next Friday. The FBI had applied for the search warrants in its investigation of the July 27 bombing that resulted in two deaths.

Three Olympians will be honored at the annual Mexican Independence Parade to be held Sunday in East Los Angeles. Grand marshal for the parade is boxing champion Oscar De La Hoya, a 1992 gold medalist, who will cruise along the 2 1/2-mile route in a shiny red Corvette. Joining him in the 39th annual parade will be Paul Gonzalez, a 1984 boxing gold medalist, and Fernando Vargas, a 1996 Olympic boxer from Oxnard. The theme of the parade is "Olympic Echoes." The event will begin at 2 p.m.