Atlanta’s Olympic bombing... Introducing ‘Flashpoint’
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Hey, Atlanta Monster listeners. My name is Cole Lacascio, host of the new podcast, Flashpoint, brought to you by Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts. Some of you may remember where you were on July 27th, 1996, when a domestic terrorist bombed the Summer Olympic Games held in Atlanta, Georgia. While the FBI and the media fixated on the wrong man, a serial bomber was planning his next, more politically motivated, attacks.

In Flashpoint, we will explore America's greatest threat, the political and religious radicalization of homegrown terrorists. As an Atlanta native, I have an interesting connection to this story, one you'll hear about early on in the podcast. The official trailer is out now. Just search Flashpoint in your podcast app to follow the show. While you're here, check out this sneak peek of episode one.

Space Jam. July 4th is Independence Day. The first night of the 100th anniversary of the world's greatest sporting event, and no birthday party ever had an invitation list quite like this. Welcome to Atlanta's Olympic Stadium. Well, the Olympics were in Atlanta in 1996, and

It was a really big gig for us. I mean, there was, I don't know, 40, 50, 60,000 people every night in Centennial Park. Bill Bergman and Andrew Kastner are two members of the band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. They were slated to perform 10 nights in a row at the 96 Olympics. Center stage, the gig of a lifetime. We rehearsed a special show just for that Olympic gig, and every night we would come on after the

Travis Tritt or Kenny Rogers or all kinds of different people. And we would play 11 at night to 1 in the morning. But the sixth night of their run would be their last. There was a lot of security to get backstage. They ran us through Interpol. I mean, I play saxophone and the guy literally looked down my horn through the tube. But anybody could get into the audience.

I don't even know if there was any security at all. Well, no. I mean, you had 50,000 people wearing their backpacks into that park. And it was a ginormous stage, and they had these two caterpillar-looking things on each side of the stage that were 150 feet long and 100 feet up in the air, and that's where they would show the videos.

We were seven stories up and we're playing our set and we're grooving. I mean, everything is just perfect. And then we were getting towards the end of the set and we did an original song called I Walked Alone. And it was right after the song ended and our lead singer started announcing the next song. Oh yeah, are you still out there?

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So we're going to party till the sun comes up. But you know what? See, right about now, we have the privilege of working with this. And that's when the bomb went off. We just froze in place. The whole band just froze. We didn't know what to do. And then somebody came up to us and said, we got to get out of the park. It was instantaneous pandemonium like the world rarely sees. ♪

Some ideas are so explosive, they change the world. But sometimes, they jeopardize the very ground we stand on, leaving ordinary lives in their wake, rippling out for generations. I'm Cole Acasio, and this is Flashpoint. The bombing at Centennial Olympic Park this morning was an evil act of terror, an act of cowardice that stands in sharp contrast to the courage of the Olympic athletes.

Listen to Flashpoint starting July 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.