At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a bomb exploded, killing one and injuring more than 100. A hero was quickly made?a security guard who quickly led people away from the suspicious backpack containing the bomb, preventing further injury and death, was hailed and interviewed on several television networks. But soon afterwards, this hero was just as swiftly unmade. Richard Jewell was assumed all but guilty by the same news organizations that had earlier glorified his actions, ending his career and destroying his life.
What set off this frenzy of accusation? A series of leaks from the FBI, the agency charged with thoroughly and accurately investigating the crimes.
And sadly, for all the talk of reform heard in the six years since, it seems little has changed.
Last fall, an unknown person sent a series of letters containing anthrax through the U.S. Mail, murdering five people, a horrific and disturbing crime which set off a national mania. In lieu of actually investigating the crime and handing the investigation to a federal prosecutor, once again the FBI and Justice Department have responded to heated media inquiries by furtively leaking a name, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, and letting the media dispense the justice.
And if Hatfill is indeed the anthrax killer, they’ve made a fine start. His is now a household name?he has been placed on leave as a biomedical researcher at Louisiana State University, his trash has been rifled by people hungry for a quick buck on eBay while innumerable people consider him guilty of a crime of which he has not been convicted. Admittedly, the circumstantial evidence is strong, and Hatfill’s past raises a number of questions?stints in the militaries of two white-minority African regimes are, to say the least, unsavory. But so far the investigation has found no wrongdoing, and if there is real reason to suspect Hatfill, he should be arrested and fairly prosecuted, not thrown to the media’s clutches.
So once again, the government and the media have tag-teamed a person with little thought to the consequence. The press demands new developments in a juicy story, so someone at John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, which has done little to quiet concerns that civil rights are no more than an afterthought to federal investigators, leaks a name. The press, including a shameful display by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, quickly pounces on the suspect?oh, wait, did we say “suspect”? We meant “person of interest”?igniting the all-too-familiar frenzy.
So what of Richard Jewell these days? In the aftermath of the botched investigation, he settled lawsuits with several media organizations and a former employer, and since this April he’s been a small-town cop in an Atlanta suburb. A new job and a check, however, can hardly make up for the nationwide humiliation he suffered six years ago. It’s an ordeal no law-abiding American should have to endure.
Unfortunately, it might be too late for Dr. Steven Hatfill, too.
