ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607300066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The 911 warning call came too close tothe time of the blast to aid in evacuating an open-air concert site at the Olympics, according to one law enforcement official and a Justice Department official.
The call came 18 minutes before the bomb exploded, law enforcement officials said.
The caller spoke ``in a calm voice,'' according to the Justice official, who requested anonymity. The FBI's Woody Johnson told a news conference in Atlanta, ``We believe it was a white male with an indistinguishable accent'' that Johnson agreed was American.
The call reached the 911 operator at 1:07 a.m., a law enforcement official said, adding ``The caller said a bomb would go off in Centennial Park in 30 minutes.''
A bomb went off at 1:25 a.m., spewing nails and screws, the law enforcement official said. Nails and screws are included with such bombs to increase the harm to people.
The call ``was strictly a warning'' accurately predicting the site of the blast, another law enforcement official said, requesting anonymity. The caller did not give a name or identify any group or organization claiming responsibility for the bombing, a second law enforcement official said.
The 911 call did not provide enough advance warning to dispatch a bomb squad, the first law enforcement official said, but coincidentally a bomb squad had already been summoned to the site by someone who noticed an unattended bag.
Bomb squad officers who examined the bag quickly before beginning an evacuation saw three pipes inside, but the pipes may all have been part of one bomb rather than three separate ones, the first official said.
The 911 call came from a pay telephone about two blocks from the location of the explosion, the Justice Department official said.
Agents were able to quickly determine that because Atlanta's 911 system, like others, displays for emergency operators the telephone number of the calling party.
FBI agents obtained the tape of the call and dusted the pay telephone for fingerprints.
One Treasury agent expressed confidence the bombing could be solved: ``We've got a phone call. And a pipe bomb is very inefficient; it always leaves a lot of evidence behind. We've investigated thousands of these; we know what to do.''
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. An agent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigationby CNBchecks out the phone used to make a warning call, about two blocks
from Olympic Park. color.