ATLANTA'S FED-UP SUSPECT

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Richard Jewell sprang his dog last week. After what his ever present media watchers described as a high-speed ride to the kennel, he fetched her home, and the stop-and-go progress of the spooked Doberman and bulky owner across the Jewell front lawn was deemed sufficiently fascinating to make the nightly news. Jewell had apparently decided that it was inhumane to keep a canine accused of no wrongdoing indefinitely in close quarters, with limited exercise and under constant watch of strangers.

Meanwhile, the former security guard's lawyers engaged in a media blitz to deliver him from the same fate. As the days following the leakage of Jewell's name as a suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing turned to weeks without an arrest, defense counsel Jack Martin led reporters on a hike from the place where Jewell showed officials the bomb to the pay phone from which a warning call was placed a minute and a half later. The brisk walk, presumably faster than the pace Jewell could have sustained through Olympic crowds, took four minutes. Then last week the defense introduced former FBI polygraph expert Richard D. Rackleff, who said he had tested Jewell and judged him "totally innocent." (Jewell refused an FBI polygraph.) Finally the lawyers hit the interview shows, demanding that since the government wasn't accusing Jewell, it should clear him and apologize. Their week climaxed on Nightline's Viewpoint special, which showcased their criticism of the media's coverage of Jewell and aired a national poll indicating that only 19% of those asked thought Jewell was guilty. Said Jewell lawyer G. Watson Bryant Jr. to TIME:"These jerks [the federal authorities] need to get up off their butts and tell the truth."

To which a federal law-enforcement official in Georgia responded, "Why would the bureau want to apologize to someone it's investigating?" Another in Washington added that the inquiry's pace "isn't that unusual. It [just] seems like it's been drawn out because it's so excruciatingly public." The bureau has referred to "other suspects" in the bombing, but some of them, say Washington officials, have a Jewell connection. Bomb components being reconstructed by the feds may someday lead elsewhere. But meanwhile, Jewell and his distraught mother (who was planning her own press conference) "have no semblance of a normal life," says Bryant. Jewell rarely leaves the besieged apartment--not even to walk the dog.

--By David Van Biema. Reported by Greg Fulton/Atlanta and Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by GREG FULTON/ATLANTA AND DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON