Confrontation Leads Police to Bomb MOVE House
On May 13, 1985, in a failed attempt to serve arrest warrants on four members of the group, Philadelphia police became engaged in a gun battle at MOVE's communal residence. The mayor had, in response to pressure from the neighborhood that included a threat to use "vigilante justice," turned over the situation to Mayor Goode with the instructions to find a way to arrest the MOVE members. At this point it became a police matter and an entry plan was drawn up under the direction of Police Commissioner Sambor.
The plan called for a mixture of civilian and military explosives to be dropped on the fortification that had been built by MOVE on top of the house in order to destroy it. The satchel of explosives, alternately characterized as a "bomb" and an "entry device," was to be dropped on MOVE's rooftop structure. The fortification was also described as either a "gun turret" or a purely defensive fortification. The structure was unoccupied at the time the bomb was dropped, although there were a number of people living in the house.
The bomb did not significantly damage the rooftop structure, but did ignite several barrels of gasoline, clearly marked "fuel," starting a fire which destroyed the entire block and killed eleven people. City hoses, deployed as a part of the original entry plan, were not turned on until 40 minutes after the fire started burning. Ironically, the city's best firefighting equipment had been trained on the rooftop bunker all morning, but "the decision was made to let the fire burn" in the words of Sambor. About 10,000 rounds of ammunition were fired by the police in to the house. 62 houses burned to the ground; only Ramona Africa and Michael Ward (aka Birdie Africa) escaped alive. Six adults and five children in the MOVE house were killed.
Police initially said they had been fired upon first with automatic weapons, but only a small number of non-automatic weapons were found in the burned-out home. MOVE supporters have described the raid as a revenge attack for the 1978 shooting.
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Aftermath
In the aftermath of the catastrophe the city launched a special investigation which found, among other things, that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable." The mayor was re-elected in the next election, and no police officer was fined, fired or suspended.
Philadelphia has paid over $32 million to the victims, including $840,000 to Michael Ward, $1.5 million to Ramona Africa and the relatives of John and Frank Africa, and has been ordered to pay $29 million to residents of Osage Avenue and Pine Street whose homes were destroyed by the fire. (The city of Philadelphia is appealing the latter award.)
On December 1, 2005, U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam cut the original jury verdict of $12.8 million in more than half, to $6 million.
