ATLANTA — The 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing exactly 30 years ago today put one of the worst nights in Atlanta’s history onto the world stage.
Channel 2’s Karyn Greer spoke exclusively to a survivor who stood with his camera on top of the bomb until the man once accused of putting it there saved his life.
“I was standing on that bench‚” Jeffrey Mitchell said. “I see a security guard come at me very agitated and said, ‘Get down, get down now,’ and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’”
Mitchell was standing just inches from the bomb that killed a Georgia woman and injured more than 100 others. A journalist from Turkey suffered a heart attack and died.
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Park visitors, including Mitchell, were pushed back by a security guard before the explosion.
“I saw the bench fly over. In fact, it was so loud and the concussion hit my chest so hard I initially thought it was a car bomb,” Mitchell recalled.
Just seconds later, he was recording once again.
“I will never forget in my mind, him walking towards me,” Mitchell said.
He credits that security guard, Richard Jewell, with saving his life.
But Jewell became the center of media frenzy as a person of interest in the early days of the FBI’s investigation.
“I didn’t recognize him at first,” Mitchell said. “It wasn’t until later that I made the connection.”
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David Johnson was the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge overseeing the investigation.
"If it had been a normal situation where you’re doing investigations, we probably would have cleared him in three or four days instead of six weeks or two months," Johnson said of Jewell. “We had to look at anybody that came up as a suspect because it could be that person.”
Mitchell said that he knew he had to act fast to get his recording out.
“I’m at the house, I’m thinking I had been at the park all day. I mean, all day, a lot of people had backpacks, maybe I got something on tape,” he said. “The only thing I can think of, live in Atlanta, take it to CNN.”
But it never made it to the news.
“They had helicopters flying over. FBI was everywhere,” he said. “I said, ‘Well, I may have some evidence.’”
The sheriff called the FBI, who raced Mitchell to their office and took his tape into evidence, leaving him with only a VHS copy that preserves his piece of the night that his life was saved.
“In my mind, Richard Jewell is a hero. He saved my life, and I will never forget him,” Mitchell said.
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