Excerpted from the ENN Daily Report -- 07/28/96

Original report: 7/27/96 - 19:43CDT

GBI Agents Called Heros in Olympic Park Bombing
By Steve Macko, ENN Editor

ATLANTA (ENN) - Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent Tom Davis, age 37, and eight other law enforcement officers are being credited with preventing Saturday morning's bombing at Centennial Olympic Park from becoming even a worse bloodbath than what is was. Davis, a 15-year veteran, was only trying to quiet some rowdy drunks when fate put him face-to-face with a bomb packed in a knapsack.

Davis had be originally dispatched to handle some rowdy people. By the time he arrived at the scene where there was supposed to be a disturbance, the rowdy people were gone. A stage security guard then pointed to a new problem -- an unattended green knapsack left under a picnic bench. At the time of the discovery, Davis was not aware of a bomb threat that was called into Atlanta 911 operators.

Something in his cop instinct made Davis highly suspicious of the bag. He called for a bomb diagnostic team. The bomb experts looked at the bag and they didn't like what they saw, either. Only twenty minutes after the discovery, as Davis and other officers were trying tactfully to steer people away from the area -- the knapsack blew up.

Agent Steve Blackwell, also with the GBI, was also one of the officers who tried to usher people away from the light and sound tower. Blackwell said, "I didn't want to say we had a bomb. That would have created a panic." He added, "If I told you I wasn't scared, I'd be lying."

Blackwell was injured in the blast. He related what happened by saying, "My team and I spread out along the crowd and began to back it up and the bomb detonated. I saw a flash. I saw a puff of smoke. I saw the orange flame. Then something grabbed me and threw me across the ground." Small pieces of shrapnel entered into the 33-year-old's right leg. He was transported to Georgia Baptist Medical Center where he was met by his wife, who is an emergency room nurse at the hospital.

Investigators said that the bomb was a crude, but effective explosive device, a pipe bomb, which had nails and screws attached. The bomber apparently carried the backpack into the park and dropped it next to the light and sound tower. Shrapnel from the explosion was thrown upwards to 100 yards. FBI Atlanta Division Special-Agent-In-Charge Woody Johnson said, "We are dealing with an improvised explosive device, what we would describe as an anti-personnel fragmentation device, a home-made bomb. I am certain that the evidence obtain from that will provide leads ... the evidence that we are now obtaining will be flown to Washington for evaluation by our lab, much of it today. We have a fairly good idea where the 911 call came from and we are conducting investigations around that particular information." Johnson added that there may have been more than one device in the knapsack with nails and screws attached.

One of the people killed was a 44-year-old woman. She died from massive head wounds received in the blast. The other victim was a 40-year-old Turkish national. He died from a heart attack sustained right after the blast. All-in-all, the death toll would probably have been much higher if police had not been already trying to clear spectators away from the area before the bomb detonated.

At 0107 EDT, Atlanta Police received a 911 emergency call from person warning that a bomb would explode in the park within 30 minutes. FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge Johnson said, "We have listened to the tape of the individual who made the call to the 911 number. We believe it to be a white male with an indistingushable accent." The man is believed be an American.

Troubles for the security personnel in Atlanta did not stop in the park on Saturday. After the explosion, there was a rash of prank bomb threats. Johnson said, "Since the device went off, we have had a number of phone calls and suspicious reports. We had dispatched bomb disposal teams to 35 locations prior to 11:00 a.m. this morning."

At 1300 EDT, spectators at the boxing venue were not allowed to enter the stadium because of a bomb scare. The semifinal men's beach volleyball game was halted because of another threat. Bomb threats were received a train station and at Grady Hospital, where many of the injured victims from the bomb blast were taken. In the late afternoon, bomb technicians had to conduct a controlled explosion of a suspicious package at a shopping center. The package is believed to have only contained a clothes iron.

The current wave of violence is beginning to undermine the once- confident view that many Americans had -- that the U.S. was invulnerable to terrorist attacks. Neil Livingstone, a well-known terrorism expert said, "There's a deep sense of unease in America today and this is just going to exacerbate that. I'm afraid we're just going to see ... more and more security as a response to the fears."

Israeli terrorism experts were saying on Sunday that the bombing on Saturday morning in Atlanta suggests more of the work of a rank-amateur rather than an international terrorist. David Tsur, an Israeli advisor to Olympic security officials and who is a former commander of Israeli police special forces, said, "Because of the amateurish charge -- and it appears to be something improvised -- we believe it's not any sort of complex organization or that an international terrorist organization did this."

Tsur said that he believes that the bomber was "a frustrated citizen" or a "redneck who hates the establishment." He said, "It seems more a local initiative which is part of the domestic terrorism in the United States that has become more and more troubling."

It is in the opinion of Tsur that there are very few similarities between this bombing and the terrorist incident that struck the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, in 1972. Tsur said, "Munich is not exactly, in my opinion, the right example. It's correct these are the only times that at sporting events there were showcase attacks. But Munich was different in substance from the present attack. Here there was an attack in a public center connected to the Olympics. But there is no resemblance here to the infiltration of the Olympic Village in Munich."

Another Israeli expert, Hebrew University Professor Ehud Sprinzak said, "According to all the signs, it's the work of an amateur. The world is full of lunatics and people who are awfully angry." Sprinzak said that, in his opinion, there was no link to Saturday's bombing and the downing of TWA Flight 800. He said, "There's no sort of link. No pipe bomb can blow up a plane and there are truly no signs that it's the same target and it's definitely another story altogether."

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