Centennial Olympic Park bombing

Centennial Olympic Park bombing

The Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a domestic terrorist pipe bombing attack on July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics. The blast directly killed one person and injured 111 others. It was the first of four bombings committed by Eric Rudolph. Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bomb before detonation and began clearing spectators out of the park.

About Centennial Olympic Park bombing in brief

Summary Centennial Olympic Park bombingThe Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a domestic terrorist pipe bombing attack on July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics. The blast directly killed one person and injured 111 others; another person later died of a heart attack. It was the first of four bombings committed by Eric Rudolph. Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bomb before detonation and began clearing spectators out of the park. After the bombing, Jewell was initially investigated as a suspect by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and news media aggressively focused on him as the presumed culprit. In October 1996, the FBI declared Jewell no longer a person of interest. Following three more bombings in 1997, Rudolph was identified by the FBI as the suspect. Rudolph was arrested in 2003, and in 2005 he agreed to plead guilty to avoid a potential death sentence. Jewell died on August 29, 2007, at the age of 44, from serious medical problems related to the age from which he had been suffering.

He was never a suspect in the bombing and emphasized he was only a potential suspect and had issues in the law enforcement case against him. The cases were later settled after 15 years of litigation with the Georgia Court of Appeals with the decision in July 2012, that the newspapers accurately reported that the 44-year-old was the key suspect. The case was later settled out of court with the court of appeals. The court ruled that the reports were inaccurate and that the police reports for minor infractions had been exaggerated. The decision was made to settle the case out of Court of appeals with the Court of Appeal with the ruling that the epic epic reports had been inaccurate and had been grossly misconstrued by the media and the public. The ruling was made on July 28, 2012. The trial of the former Piedmont College President Raymond Cleere is expected to begin in January 2013.