Atlanta Mayor Again Takes Comforting Role

ATLANTA —  It happened again Thursday: When crisis came to town, Mayor Bill Campbell took over as Atlanta’s most visible spokesman to address the media and calm the populace.

Campbell assumed his by-now familiar role as Atlanta’s Chief Public Face once again after a shooting rampage left nine dead in two of his city’s office buildings. In news conferences carried live nationally, he sedately outlined what he knew, what he didn’t and even, occasionally, how he felt.

“From Colorado to Atlanta, these things occur. We do not know why,” Campbell said after gunman Mark Orrin Barton committed suicide Thursday night. “We’ll simply have to search our souls.”

“Pray for our city,” the second-term mayor implored.

Campbell, a Democrat first elected in 1993, has made a habit of holding live news conferences soon after other crises, including the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996 and a mass shooting last month that left all but one member of an Atlanta family dead.

It’s a role that most cities delegate to a spokesman or, in serious situations, a chief of police, though Police Chief Beverly Harvard was out of town Thursday. But Campbell’s aides say he recognizes the need for leadership in such situations.

“He’s the mayor of the city, and when something like this happens, he needs to be here,” said his spokesman, Nick Gold.

Campbell remained soft-spoken and solemn but stayed very involved, pacing the scene as he received updates on his cell phone. It was, for him, a task that is growing far too familiar.

“In the past two weeks, we’ve had two deranged people kill 17 people, perhaps more, in this city,” he said. “I have no explanation for it.”

Campbell, the third black to hold the mayor’s office in the history of the city, addressed the media after the city’s three bombings, including one of an abortion clinic in 1997.

“The second explosion is clearly designed to maim and hurt those who were coming to assist,” Campbell said at the time, providing detail usually reserved for detectives. “So we’re dealing with a warped mind here.”

Fugitive Eric Robert Rudolph has been charged with the three bombings--the abortion clinic, a gay nightclub and the Olympic bombing that killed one.

Also in October 1996, Campbell handled media duties during a hostage standoff that resulted in the release of three people and the death of a 5-year-old.

Campbell has also been in the national spotlight for his ardent defense of the city’s affirmative action program and his lawsuit against gun makers, which was outlawed by the Georgia General Assembly.