January 16, 1997: Atlanta Building Destroyed, Seven Injured in Abortion Clinic Bombings

Two bomb blasts, one an hour after the first, destroy the Sandy Springs Professional Building in Atlanta, Georgia, containing the Atlanta Northside Family Planning Service. The second blast is apparently designed to injure or kill responders such as firemen, paramedics, and others responding to the first blast. “This bomber placed secondary bombs designed to kill and maim rescuers, paramedics, firefighters, and police officers who rushed to the scene to help,” John Magaw of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) will later say. “He didn’t care who they were.” Seven people are injured in the blast. Anti-abortion activist Eric Rudolph (see October 14, 1998 and January 29, 1998) will later be convicted of the bombings. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/14/1998; CBS News, 4/19/2007; Associated Press, 5/31/2009] The second bomb could have had a far more devastating effect, but, according to FBI agent Jack Killorin, a couple visiting a nearby substance abuse treatment center inadvertently parked their car directly in front of Rudolph’s bomb. “It absorbed huge amounts of the explosive,” Killorin will say. [Orlando Weekly, 8/24/2006]