CNN - FBI: Atlanta bar blast raises specter of 'serial bomber'

Second bomb may have targeted law enforcement

February 22, 1997
Web posted at: 9:50 p.m. EST

ATLANTA (CNN) -- The FBI said Saturday a "serial bomber" may be responsible for a bombing at a popular gaynightclub in Atlanta that injured five people.

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The bomb, packed with nails, exploded in the back patio section of the Otherside Lounge in Atlanta shortly before 10 p.m. Friday. Staff said the club, frequented mostly by lesbians, was about half full at the time.

Police found a second bomb in a backpack hidden among some bushes near an adjacent parking lot and detonated the device with a remote-control robot.

It was the fourth bomb to strike Atlanta in seven months, and investigators said the attack bore similarities to two previous incidents -- a double bombing in January at a family planning clinic and the deadly Centennial Olympic Park bombing last July.

Like both previous attacks, nails were used as shrapnel; like the Olympic bombing, a backpack was used to deliver a bomb; and like the clinic bombing in the Northside Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, a second device, timed to explode after police and medical teams had arrived on the scene, was used.

"We all recognize that there are similarities here," Woody Johnson, the special agent in charge of the Atlanta FBI office, told a news conference Saturday. "We will be searching out the possibility that we have a serial bomber."

Added Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms special agent Jack Killorin: "We've structured this to absolutely include the possibility that we are looking at a serial bomber. Putting the task force from the existing bomb onto this bombing will help us do that, noting that if they turn out not to be related, if this is a copycat, then we can later separate out the investigations."

Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell attributed the bombing to "a deranged killer, but one that is very clever as well." (176/7 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

Lessons learned

Lessons learned from the attack last month may have helped law enforcement agents avoid injuries when they responded to the explosion Friday night.

Atlanta police "noticed what they thought might be a second device, and we backed up and proceeded very slowly and carefully and attempted to disarm it," Johnson said.

Of the five people hurt during the blast, only one was taken to a hospital. She was identified as Memrie Wells-Criswell of Snellville, Georgia. The woman underwent surgery to remove what was found to be a 3- to 4-inch nail from her right shoulder Saturday morning and was later listed in stable condition.

Four others were treated at a local hospital and released.

The club is described as having a wide variety of patrons, "primarily women, but mixed" with a "significant African-American presence," the ATF agent said.

Gay activists decry blast

An Atlanta gay activist told CNN that he was convinced that homophobia was a motive for the bombing of The Otherside.

"This was well known as a gay and lesbian bar," said Larry Pellegrini of the Georgia Equality Project. "If they (the bomber) wanted to strike out at somebody else, there were a thousand other places they could have targeted."

"It's unmistakable that patrons of the bar were targeted. The club could not be confused with a non-gay club," Pellegrini said.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force wrote to President Clinton Saturday, pressing him to "speak out loudly" against the attack.

Unlike last year's park bombing, authorities don't know of any warning calls in Friday's bombing. It was called into the city's 911 center as a shooting, Atlanta Police Chief Beverly Harvard said.

Patrons reported seeing a flash, followed by a blast they said resembled an exploding electrical transformer.

"I can't believe it," nightclub owner Beverly McMahon said. "We've been there seven years, and I've been talking about it all night, and I can't come up with a clue."

The federal task force investigating the abortion clinic bombings will take over the nightclub explosion, joined by an ATF team arriving Saturday from Washington. A separate team is looking into the Olympic blast.

Reuters contributed to this report.