Editorial: A true Olympic hero

Sunday, Sept. 2, 2007 | 12:59 p.m.

"Olympic park bombing figure Richard Jewell died of a heart attack ..." was how a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution began last week.

The story confirmed Jewell's fear, that there will always be those who remember him as a "bombing figure" or "bombing suspect," rather than as a hero whose actions undoubtedly saved many people from being killed or injured.

Jewell, 44, was found dead in his Georgia home Wednesday. The Atlanta paper said medical officials ruled that his death was brought on by heart disease aggravated by an aggressive case of diabetes.

Jewell was on duty as a temporary security guard early in the morning of July 27, 1996, in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park during the Summer Games when he spotted a knapsack that his instinct told him was suspicious.

Jewell alerted police and took it upon himself to start ushering people away. Minutes later the sack exploded. One woman was killed and 111 people were injured.

After two days of being hailed as a hero, Jewell's life changed forever when the Journal-Constitution reported that he was the "focus" of law enforcement attention. In its obituary on Jewell, the Associated Press wrote, "Other media, to varying degrees, also linked Jewell to the investigation and portrayed him as a loser and law-enforcement wannabe who may have planted the bomb so he would look like a hero when he discovered it later."

Although Jewell was cleared on Oct. 26 of that year, although notorious bomber Eric Rudolph subsequently pleaded guilty to the crime, and although many media outlets (but not the Journal-Constitution, which acknowledges Jewell's innocence but stands by its story) settled lawsuits with him, Jewell's name is still associated more with the bombing than his heroism.

Most responsible media outlets learned a valuable lesson from the Jewell case. Now they should remember the man behind the case, and start calling him what he really was - not a figure, but a hero.