Wonder how many people have heard of the MOVE bombing
? Police fired an astonishing 10,000 rounds of ammunition into that house while enforcing warrants that named only three MOVE members for misdemeanour charges. By the time that the fire was brought under control, 11 people were killed, 250 people were left homeless, and 61 houses were destroyed
PHILADELPHIA AND THE MOVE BOMBING
MOVE
Founded in the early 1970s, the MOVE organization was the brainchild of an idealistic social worker named Donald Glassey and a man named Vincent Leaphart. The name of the organization actually stood for nothing, and Leaphart and his followers espoused a back-to-nature retreat from the technology that they believed was ruining civilization. MOVE members were not known for much prior to 1977. During that year and into 1978, its members confronted the administration of former mayor Frank Rizzo. After six hundred police surrounded a MOVE commune, shots were exchanged between the police and commune members. One officer was killed and several others wounded. A dozen MOVE members were arrested on weapons and murder charges, and the movement spread out to other communes in the city. The group living at the Osage Avenue commune allegedly engaged in drug dealing, using the profits to purchase guns and explosives. Many of the members living there were children of the MOVE members imprisoned after the 1978 shootout. The stage for a second confrontation of authorities was set in the eighteen months prior to May 1985, when MOVE members in the Osage Avenue commune fortified the house and threatened the neighbors.
Confrontation
Because of their previous experience with MOVE in 1978, city officials took a vastly different approach in their efforts to evict the cult members from Osage Avenue. They evacuated more than five hundred people from a three-block area surrounding the cult house. When a last-minute appeal by boyhood friends of "defense minister" Conrad Africa failed to draw the MOVE members out, police began their siege. First, high-pressure water jets were used in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge a steel-reinforced bunker on the roof of the building that allowed the cult members a clear field of fire over Osage Avenue. MOVE members and police then engaged in a ninety-minute gunfight. An attempt to enter the building by breaking through a cellar wall failed when MOVE members became aware of the attempt and set up an ambush, successfully fighting off the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.
Air Attack
A decision was finally made to attack the roof bunker with explosives. A police helicopter dropped two pounds of DuPont Tovex TR-2, a nonincendiary blasting agent, onto the bunker. About twenty minutes later, flames were visible on the roof. Rather than once again turning on the water cannons, a decision was apparently reached to allow the fire to burn in an attempt to force the MOVE members out. By the time firefighters eventually responded, the roof collapsed and the entire building was in flames. This tragic decision was only the beginning of what turned out to be a monumental misjudgment by city officials.
Conflagration
Firefighters soon learned that the fire was spreading in the neighborhood of row houses. Attempts to halt the fire were initially unsuccessful. Only two MOVE members were able to escape the flames, Ramona Africa and a thirteen-year-old boy, Birdie Africa. By the time that the fire was brought under control, 11 people were killed, 250 people were left homeless, and 61 houses were destroyed. The eleven dead included six adults and five children. After months of hearings into the tragedy, Philadelphia mayor Wilson Goode admitted that he and city officials made a mistake in handling the situation.
Source:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3468303095.html
