Yesterday, Richard Jewell (44) was found dead in his home in Woodbury, Georgia. He had been ill with diabetes and kidney failure since February. His death was ignored by CBS and covered as follows by ABC, CNN, and NBC[1]:
ABC: Former Security Guard Jewell Dies
CNN: Vindicated Olympic Park bombing suspect Richard Jewell dies
NBC: Olympics bombing figure Richard Jewell dies
The word that's missing from these headlines is "Hero"
Richard Jewell saved the lives of who knows (I figure 20-50) people by doing exactly waht he was supposed to do. He noticed a strange and unatended backpack during the 1996 Olympic festivities in Atlanta Georgia and began ordering people away from the suspicious item. As a result, what could have been a horrible scene of carnage was limited to a single fatality.
In the investigation that followed, "leaks to the press" from "unidentified" (FBI) "sources" basically pinned the bombing to him and subjected him to three months in hell. FOR DOING HIS JOB! FOR SAVING LIVES! After 88 days, the Justice Department finally admitted that he was not the bomber (the bomber later turned out to be Eric Rudolph, the abortion clinic bomber) and, in an unprecedented move (at the time) apologized.
Long before the Wen Ho Lee case, Richard Jewell was subjected to an entirely unjustified trial in the press that forever destroyed my faith in the FBI. To this day, on his death, the major news organizations in this county still cannot bring themselves to do him justice by labelling him what he was, a hero.
[1] I'll be damned if I know what faux news said, and I don't much care. Don't buy books by crooks, don't give hits to faux.