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Feds merge Atlanta, Birmingham bombing investigations
In this story:
March 17, 1998
- Old Atlanta task force to head merged operation
- Special prosecutor proposal a sticking point
- Related sites and stories
Web posted at: 10:27 p.m. EST (0327 GMT)WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After several weeks of bureaucratic infighting, federal investigators announced Tuesday the merger of their probe of a fatal clinic blast in Birmingham, Alabama, with the investigation into three Atlanta bombings.
A Justice Department news release said the various agencies in the two investigations "will pool their resources into one region-wide investigation" working as the Southeast Bombing Task Force.
The announcement made no mention of Eric Robert Rudolph, the 31-year-old fugitive who is charged with the bombing of the Birmingham clinic where abortions are performed.
The now-superseded Atlanta Bomb Task Force had been looking into whether Rudolph might also be responsible for the Atlanta attacks, which started with a blast in Centennial Olympic Park in 1996.
Officials say they have found some tenuous links between Rudolph and some of the Atlanta bombings but not enough to charge him.
Old Atlanta task force to head merged operation
The new task force will include the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, the Birmingham Police Department, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Justice Department said. Some state and local law enforcement officers will be deputized to carry out certain operations of the federal task force.
The command structure of the old Atlanta task force will continue to head the merged operation, which will be carried out in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina.
The announcement about the merger of investigations had been delayed for several weeks as various agencies wrangled over control. The new arrangement was the product of more than two weeks of negotiations between various federal and state agencies under the supervision of Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder.
Aftermath of the Birmingham clinic bombing Sources said officials in Birmingham were particularly concerned that losing control of the investigation would appear to downgrade their resolve to find and convict the person responsible for the January bombing that killed an off-duty policeman.
Doug Jones, U.S. attorney in Birmingham, and Birmingham Police Chief Mike Coppage objected in late February when FBI Director Louis Freeh ordered FBI inspector Terry Turchie, who led the successful Unabomber investigation, to coordinate a combined effort in Atlanta.
Turchie instead will head a command post in North Carolina, where the search for Rudolph has been concentrated, said officials who requested anonymity.
Special prosecutor proposal a sticking point
A sticking point delaying the merger was the proposal that a special prosecutor be appointed to handle all the bombings. The U.S. attorneys in Atlanta and Birmingham objected to losing control of the cases locally, sources said.
Sources said the question of naming a special prosecutor has not been resolved.
Investigators are trying to determine if Rudolph was in Atlanta at the time of three earlier bombings: the blast during the 1996 Olympics; a January 1997 bombing of a clinic where abortions are performed; and a blast at a gay nightclub in February 1997. Agents are assuming that the same person or people were behind all three bombings.
Links between Rudolph and the Atlanta blasts could be merely coincidences, said a senior agent on the case who requested anonymity. "But in this business if you can pile up enough coincidences, sometimes you get somewhere," the agent said.
The Olympic and Atlanta abortion clinic bombs had one-eighth-inch thick steel plates designed to direct the blasts. The plates were found to have the same general formulation of steel, the agent said.
Some of the manufacturers who make that type of steel sold it throughout the Southeast, including to a metalworking plant in Franklin, North Carolina, where an associate of Rudolph worked, the agent added.
Another federal agent said lab analysis showed that 1 1/2-inch flooring nails used in the bombs at the clinics in Birmingham and Atlanta came from the same batch of nails found in a storage shed rented by Rudolph. The batch of nails "was produced and sold in a small area," the agent said.
In addition, letters signed "Army of God" claimed responsibility for the bombings at the gay nightclub and the clinic in Atlanta and for the Birmingham bombing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Sources: Evidence links Birmingham, Atlanta bombings - February 27, 1998
- Investigators look to link Rudolph to Atlanta bombings - February 27, 1998
Related sites:
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- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Jefferson County Sheriff's Department
- U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
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