  We present ground-based optical observations of GRB 020124 starting 1.6 hours
after the burst, as well as subsequent Very Large Array (VLA) and Hubble Space
Telescope (HST) observations. The optical afterglow of GRB 020124 is one of the
faintest afterglows detected to date, and it exhibits a relatively rapid decay,
$F_\nu\propto t^{-1.60\pm 0.04}$, followed by further steepening. In addition,
a weak radio source was found coincident with the optical afterglow. The HST
observations reveal that a positionally coincident host galaxy must be the
faintest host to date, R>29.5 mag. The afterglow observations can be explained
by several models requiring little or no extinction within the host galaxy,
A_V~0-0.9 mag. These observations have significant implications for the
statistics of the so-called dark bursts (bursts for which no optical afterglow
is detected), which are usually attributed to dust extinction within the host
galaxy. The faintness and relatively rapid decay of the afterglow of GRB
020124, combined with the low inferred extinction indicate that some dark
bursts are intrinsically dim and not dust obscured. Thus, the diversity in the
underlying properties of optical afterglows must be observationally determined
before substantive inferences can be drawn from the statistics of dark bursts.
