Does anyone remember the MOVE bombing in Philly?

[XanaDUer]

SNIP-Twenty years ago, Philadelphia's Osage Avenue was the site of a stunning use of force by city police. After a long standoff, police dropped a bomb on the headquarters of a radical group called MOVE, sparking a fire that gutted a neighborhood and left 11 people dead. Five were children.

MOVE was a radical cult-like group that preached revolution, advocating a return to nature and a society without government, police or technology. The group took up residence on Osage Avenue, a quiet tree-lined street of tidy row houses. Except for the MOVE house. The windows and doors of 6221 Osage Ave. were barricaded with plywood. The group hoarded weapons, built a giant wooden bunker on the roof and used a bullhorn to scream obscenities all hours of the night.

Frustrated neighbors turned to city officials for help. On the morning of May 13, 1985, dozens of Philadelphia police, fire fighters and city officials amassed around the MOVE house to force the group out. A standoff ensued, as MOVE members bunkered down inside the house exchanged gunfire with police outside. At 5:30 that evening, a Philadelphia police helicopter dropped a bomb onto the roof of the house in an effort to drive MOVE members out.

Accounts differ on why the fire wasn't snuffed out, despite the dozen fire trucks surrounding the block. Ramona Africa, the sole surviving adult in the house, says police fired on MOVE members as they tried to escape the burning house. Police say the MOVE members ran in and out of the house firing at them. Police ordered their officers and fire fighters to stay back. What is clear is that four hours later, 61 houses on the block were gone, and everyone inside the MOVE house, except for Ramona Africa and a 13-year-old boy, was dead.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4651126

[RKP5637]

1. Yep, I remember watching all of it on TV. n/t

[bobbieinok]

4. yes

My brother says either Time or Newsweek story said it was the first time since the Tulsa Race Riot (whites rioted, NOT blacks) in 1921 that homes in US were bombed by government agencies.

The Tulsa Race Riot is still little known. Those of us attending school in Tulsa never heard about it, it was not in the standard histories of the city. Even some contemporary newspaper material "disappeared."

35 blocks in the black section of the city were destroyed, many blacks were "interned" at the Tulsa Fairgrounds, a nationally known black physician was murdered, many blacks spent the winter in tents, some white businessmen tried to get the land to develop and keep the blacks from rebuilding.

[XanaDUer]

6. Yes,

there have been bombings of US citizens on US soil.

It's important we remember these instances.

Thank you for telling my about the Tulsa Race Riot. There was also an Atlanta Race Riot in 1906, white killing blacks due to alleged attacks on white women.

[RKP5637]

11. I had never heard of the Tulsa Race Riot. Thanks for telling us about it. n/t

[Warpy]

2. I remember it was pretty hard to get real news about it here in NM

because the papers were all right wing and TV news was woefully inadequate.

Careers would be over and bad cops hung out to dry had it happened just 5 years later, when the computer boom was really taking off and news was being disseminated quickly across the country, including eyewitness accounts.

Here, nobody knew what MOVE was or why the cops attacked it, just that a bunch of homes were allowed to burn just to get one building full of "radicals."

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. It became part of the act in Philadelphia Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings..

.."When the mayor of Philadelphia says MOVE, you MOVE!"

[On the Road]

15. Wow, That is Crazy

I only went to one public screening of Rocky Horror. Have no idea what that says about the audience.

Also, I had no idea that Mumia was a member of MOVE. Throws that into a different light, too.

[Beaverhausen]

5. I could hear gunfire all day from my apartment near St. Joes

[drm604]

7. Yes, I remember it well.

I was attending West Chester University, in the Philly 'burbs at the time. I heard something about it in the morning before starting classes. Then, while driving home that evening (I was a commuting student) I heard about the bomb on the radio (they called it an "entry device"). When I got home the television showed scenes of burning houses.

For a while afterwards a lot of local political arguments, in bars and homes as well as in the media, were about the definition of "bomb". Those who supported the police insisted that it was not a bomb but an "entry device".

[treestar]

8. I remember that

And it was around the time of the SLA, which had a similar incident.

There are always going to be tough cases. I believe that there is a saying that hard cases make bad law.

[Demoiselle]

9. I sure do remember..

Here's a Wikipedia entry about it in detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE

I am sure there are plenty of other accounts out there..

[yardwork]

10. I remember it well. Children and babies burned to death. Hundreds of people homeless.

A really shameful episode in U.S. history.

[PCIntern]

12. As a Philadelphian,

one of the most interesting facts is unnoticed and AFAIK, unreported:

after the fires were finally extinguished, the NEXT night saw the worst windstorms anyone had seen here for a while. All of West Philly would have been ablaze if they had done this deed one day later.

[XanaDUer]

13. I didn't know that

thanks.

[JoePhilly]

14. I remember it ... I lived close enough to see the glow of the fire that night.

The row home I lived in was about 6 or so miles away.