Sandy Sanderson

Robert Dewayne "Sandy" Sanderson (born June 19, 1963; died January 29, 1998 in Birmingham) was a Birmingham Police officer who was killed while off duty and moonlighting as a security guard at the New Woman All Women Clinic on 10th Avenue South on Southside. He was killed by a bomb at the abortion clinic planted by Eric Robert Rudolph.

Sanderson lived in Mt Olive and was one of six people selected from the North Jefferson area to carry the Olympic Torch down U.S. Highway 31 toward Birmingham for the 1996 Olympic Summer Games in Atlanta.

Early on the morning of January 29, 1998, Rudolph left a bomb inside a FedEx box in some bushes near the clinic entrance. He lingered near the scene holding a remote-control, which he used to detonate the explosive at 7:33 a.m. when he saw that Sanderson had discovered the device. The shrapnel bomb killed Sanderson instantly, and critically-injured nurse Emily Lyons who had just arrived for work. Sanderson's was the first fatality associated with violence aimed against abortion clinics in the United States.

Sanderson is buried in Crestview Memorial Gardens in Adamsville.

References

• Lasseter, Tim (June 27, 1996) "Local runners to carry torch in Gardendale" North Jefferson News
• Robert Sanderson at FindAGrave website