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17 Victims of Olympic Bombing File $100 Million Lawsuit

ATLANTA, July 25—Attorneys for 17 people injured in last year's Olympic Park bombing filed a $100 million lawsuit against Olympic organizers today, claiming the attack could have been foreseen and prevented.

The FBI, so far stumped in its investigation, released a revised sketch of a possible witness who agents hope may provide more information about the blast last July 27.

Attorneys filed the suit in Fulton County State Court against the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), AT&T and two security firms on behalf of 17 of the more than 100 people who were injured when the bomb went off. The explosion also led to two deaths.

The suit asks for a jury trial and seeks $100 million in punitive damages and unspecified actual damages. Attorneys said it was filed on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the bombing in order to meet a deadline for certain court claims.

"ACOG and the other companies in charge of security were warned that a bomb was likely to be detonated in the park," attorney James Sadd said. "That bomb should have never been in the park. Once they discovered the bomb, we believe it was just a tragedy of errors. It was not dealt with properly. People were not evacuated as they should have been."

The bombing, which caused a widespread security clampdown in Atlanta as hundreds of thousands of visitors thronged to the Summer Olympics, remains unsolved.

As part of its effort to uncover more clues, the FBI issued a new drawing of someone seen sitting on the bench under which the bomb was placed in Centennial Olympic Park. The original drawing depicted a white man in his twenties with a goatee. He is cleanshaven in the new drawing.

"We've done another sketch and we've taken the goatee off," said FBI agent Jack Daulton. "The possibility exists that he didn't have a goatee three weeks before he was at the Olympic site, so somebody might not know him with a goatee."

FBI officials said the man depicted in the revised sketch is not considered a suspect. Two witnesses saw him sitting on the bench between 12:40 a.m. and 12:45 a.m., minutes after the pipe bomb was placed underneath the bench and about 45 minutes before the bomb exploded.

Daulton, who heads the investigation into the Olympic bombing, said there is a "strong possibility" that whoever was responsible for the Olympic bombing was also responsible for bombs this year at an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in the Atlanta area.

Federal agents are still seeking someone seen in a videotape just before the bomb was placed in the park and have received a tape they believe shows the bomb under the park bench minutes before it exploded.

"We continue to ask the public for photographs and videos," Daulton said. "There were 70,000 people in the park. I truly believe that somebody has a photograph or a video" of the bomber.