When the "Suspect" Designation Wreaks Injustice: The Richard Jewell Case
No one seems to know who coined the term "person of interest." But it is not hard to trace the root cause of the designation's relatively recent popularization. It started with a lawsuit, specifically the lawsuit of Richard Jewell, the security guard whom the FBI outed as a suspect in the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing investigation.
After the government dropped Jewell's name to the press, Jewell became the immediate target of fevered speculation. Hordes of journalists subjected his life to the unrelenting proctological examination that has become commonplace with the advent of cable news and its insatiable appetite for sensational stories.
As it turned out, the FBI eventually figured out that Jewell had done nothing wrong. But in the meantime, its act of naming him as a suspect in this notorious crime left his life and reputation in tatters.
Once exonerated, Jewell sued a bunch of his accusers and achieved some substantial settlements. NBC paid him more than $500,000 to settle a suit stemming from comments by news anchor Tom Brokaw that suggested that the FBI must have had significant evidence against Jewell, given that it had named him.
The lesson the police and press gleaned from the Jewell debacle, however, was not the right one. They should have learned that prematurely naming suspects is a really bad idea - as is suggesting that suspects must have been named because there's strong evidence against them.
But what the police and press learned, instead, was simply that using the loaded term "suspect" opens the door to potential legal liability.
Thus, a euphemism was born. After all, calling someone a "person of interest" doesn't suggest official suspicion or evidence of guilt. Wink; wink.
