Centennial Olympic Park bombing

Centennial Olympic Park Bombing
Part of terrorism in the United States
Bomb fragment mark on Olympic Park sculpture
Centennial Olympic Park bombing (Downtown Atlanta)
Location	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Coordinates	33°45′38″N 84°23′33″W / 33.76065°N 84.392583°W / 33.76065; -84.392583
Date	July 27, 1996 1:20 am (EDT)
Target	Centennial Olympic Park
Attack type	Bombing
Weapons	Pipe bomb
Deaths	2 (1 directly, 1 indirectly)
Injured	111
Perpetrator	Eric Rudolph
Motive	Far-right extremism

The Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a domestic terrorist pipe bombing attack on Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics. The blast directly killed one person and injured 111 others; another person later died of a heart attack. It was the first of four bombings committed by Eric Rudolph in a terrorism campaign against what he called "the ideals of global socialism" and against "abortion on demand".^[1][2] Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bomb before detonation, notified Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers, and began clearing spectators out of the park along with other security guards.

After the bombing, Jewell was initially investigated as a suspect by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and news media aggressively focused on him as the presumed culprit when he was actually innocent. In October 1996, the FBI declared Jewell was no longer a person of interest. Following three more bombings in 1997 and 1998, Rudolph was identified by the FBI as the suspect. In 2003, Rudolph was finally captured and arrested, and in 2005 he agreed to plead guilty to avoid a potential death sentence. Rudolph was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for his crimes.^[3]