00:00New at 9, a local man who worked security at Atlanta's 1996 Olympics is speaking out about the Richard Jewell
00:05movie. It just came out this weekend.
00:07It's been 23 years since the Centennial Olympic bombing during the 1996 Olympics. CBS 46's Melissa Stern sat down with
00:15that man today and he has quite the story.
00:18The movie about Richard Jewell, the hero who was falsely accused in the bombing, came out this weekend.
00:23I spoke to a man who says he will never forget what happened here that day and he also showed
00:29me pictures from his first-hand experience.
00:31It was a great party, 24-7.
00:34The tone of the 1996 Olympics held at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park changed halfway through when three pipe bombs went
00:43off, killing two people and injuring more than 100 at a free concert.
00:47The bomb went off about 1.30, so we were all getting settled back in.
00:50Joe Grimaldi was working the protection detail for the Olympic basketball team, the Dream Team.
00:56That's Reggie Miller and Charles Barkley.
00:58They had just gotten back to the Omni Hotel a couple hundred yards from where the bomb went off when
01:03they heard a loud boom.
01:05The bomb was, it was tremendous and we saw everybody running.
01:08Grimaldi was at Katrina, 9-11 and the 1996 Olympic bombing.
01:14An ordinary person thrown in extraordinary circumstances.
01:16He's planning on seeing the movie Richard Jewell that came out this weekend as he wants to see how it's
01:22portrayed.
01:23He was just an ordinary guy thrown into an extraordinary circumstance and the media roasted him.
01:28Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bomb.
01:31The sirens and the amount of ambulances that you would see come and go that it was a mass casualty
01:36situation.
01:37He started an evacuation and saved lives, but eventually became a suspect after a local newspaper ran a headline naming
01:45him as a possible suspect.
01:47Terrorist Eric Rudolph was actually behind the bombing.
01:51He carried out three bombings after that.
01:53He wasn't captured until years later.
01:56We have to remember those that were lost in these situations and circumstances.
02:00Richard Jewell died in 2007 of a heart attack at 44 years old.
02:05Reporting in Atlanta, I'm Melissa Stern, CBS 46 News.
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