The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.32           September 16, 1996 
 
 
Gov't Refuses To Stop Vilifying Atlanta Man  

BY FLOYD FOWLER

ATLANTA - On August 29 U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno was compelled to respond to a public demand three days earlier from Barbara Jewell that the government clear her son of any wrongdoing in connection with the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 27. The explosion killed one person and injured more than one hundred others during the summer Olympic games.

President William Clinton, Barbara Jewell said, "has a moral duty to the citizens of this country. If the FBI does not intend to charge my son, please tell us. Please tell the world."

While insisting that "I understand how she must feel," Reno would neither divulge whether the FBI had any evidence at all against Richard Jewell or if the government had any intention of charging him with any crime after four weeks of what the media has called "intense scrutiny."

Richard Jewell, a security guard in Centennial Park, was initially described in media reports as "a modest man with an athlete's precision" whose "alertness" saved many lives. Jewell helped to evacuate people after he discovered the bomb in a knapsack near a light tower in the park, and was himself knocked to the ground by the force of the explosion.

20,000 U.S. troops deployed in Atlanta
Twenty thousand U.S. military troops were deployed in Atlanta during the Olympic games. Groups of soldiers stood at nearly every downtown intersection and cordoned off every venue throughout the games. The Olympic village resembled an armed encampment, and the New York Times reported that there were "three times as many guards as athletes." This deployment was part of the Clinton administration's campaign to expand the powers of the police, the courts, and the state in the name of combating "terrorism."

Within days of the bombing, the FBI had secured a search warrant against Jewell and scores of Dekalb County police and FBI agents descended on his apartment, followed by droves of reporters and photographers. "Now, my son has no real life," Barbara Jewell said. "He cannot work. They have taken all privacy from us. They have taken all peace. They have rented an apartment which faces my home in order to keep their cameras trained upon us around the clock. They watch and photograph everything we do." News stories have referred to Jewell and his mother as being "holed up" in the apartment they share, and reported that fact as suspicious behavior.

Richard Jewell's rights to privacy and to be assumed innocent until proven guilty have been trampled on. The FBI "investigation" entailed not only a voice check of the 911 call reporting the bomb and the dismantling and inspection of the bank of phones where the call originated.

Campaign to vilify Jewell
The cops have subjected Jewell to repeated searches of his home and a north Georgia cabin he used, seizure of his truck and video collection, five FBI interviews, the collection of hair samples and fingerprints, confiscation of dozens of boxes of personal possessions and even examination of Barbara Jewell's Tupperware and undergarments.

The campaign to vilify Jewell is a patchwork of allegations and innuendo. A former employer labeled him as overzealous," "too excitable," and "a little erratic." FBI investigators have said he fits their profile of a lone bomber, and without producing a shred of evidence they publicly speculated that "he placed the call"' to 911. They quote unnamed "acquaintances" as saying he owned a knapsack "similar" to the one that contained the bomb.

While some people have been caught up in the effort to convict Jewell without benefit of a trial - or even charges against him - many workers are withholding judgment.

At Wilen Manufacturing, a plant here organized by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, one worker described the Attorney General as "looking at the Bill of Rights the Reno way - the Waco way!" referring to the attack ordered by Clinton and Reno against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993. That assault left 86 people dead, including many children.

Another Wilen worker, David Wareham, thought the reason for all the troops during the Olympics "was as a show of force." As for Richard Jewell, Wareham said, the FBI "made him a suspect, but they also made him their victim. They did not investigate before they made him a suspect. They just attached him to the crime.

"What is happening to Jewell is a symptom of a system that is attacking our democratic rights," he said.

Floyd Fowler is a member of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees at Wilen Manufacturing in Atlanta.  
 
 
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