Richard Jewell

On July 27, 1996, Richard Jewell was a security guard at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, with aspirations of becoming a police officer. At around 1 a.m. in crowded Centennial Olympic Park, Jewell noticed an unattended green knapsack, alerted police and helped move people away from the site. The knapsack contained a crude pipe bomb, which exploded and killed one person, injuring 111 others. In the first few days after the bombing, Richard Jewell was lauded as a hero, but only three days later the "Atlanta Journal Constitution" published a story headlined "FBI Suspects Hero Guard May Have Planted Bomb." The story stated that police were investigating the possibility that Jewell had planted the bomb. FBI agents aggressively questioned Jewell and searched his apartment. A large crowd of journalists and cameras hovered nearby as his property was hauled away as evidence. Two bombing victims even sued Jewell, despite the fact Jewell passed a polygraph and was never charged with any crime. U.S