MOVE bombing: 25 years later

Scan page 12

PHILADELPHIA—On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia police department (PPD) dropped a bomb on a house occupied by members of the MOVE organization. It’s the crime that city officials and the big business media want you to forget.

The 1985 bombing can’t be understood without knowing the context of the ongoing police repression against MOVE. MOVE has been a target of police brutality and harassment from its inception as a radical “back-to-nature” group, founded in 1972 by John Africa. The infamous police commissioner, and later, mayor, Frank Rizzo, made attacks on radical groups, particularly Black radicals, a regular practice of the PPD.

In 1977, cops attacked MOVE members, kicking pregnant women and killing a small child. On Aug. 8, 1978, the 50-week long siege of the MOVE house in the Powelton Village neighborhood ended when cops fired hundreds of rounds into the house, and sprayed it with high-pressure fire hoses. Cops used tear gas to force men, women, and children from the house. Delbert Africa was severely beaten by cops as he tried to surrender. Cops later claimed that he had attacked them. The whole incident was caught on tape by local news programs.

Nine MOVE members were convicted of killing a cop, James Ramp, in spite of witnesses’ accounts indicating that the cop had been killed by so-called “friendly fire.” Within 24 hours of the 1978 attack, the city razed the houses with bulldozers, destroying any evidence that may have freed the MOVE 9. The surviving MOVE 9 Capitalist media hack job On Friday, May 7, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a retrospective on the 25th anniversary of the MOVE bombing. The way it is written is such that it’s really a justification of the MOVE bombing disguised as “impartial and balanced”

journalism. The article makes numerous references to MOVE as a cult. The implication in a companion article by Monica Yant Kinney (“The Madness of MOVE Continues”) is that MOVE murdered John Gilbride (ex-husband of a MOVE member)—even though the cops have never made a case against anyone.

Kinney writes that MOVE members are living high on the hog on their settlement money and that the children of MOVE are neglected and abused. The main article says that Mumia was an “acolyte” of John Africa.

The (not so) hidden message? That the members of MOVE and their supporters are all crazy, and hypocrites, and that the bombing of the MOVE house, while unfortunate, should be blamed on the “crazy cult,” not on official misconduct. How easily and seamlessly our bourgeois press justifies the killing of people with a bomb and the burning of an entire neighborhood. In order to justify state murder of people you first have to demonize and objectify the victims. — JL 12 Socialist Action june 2010 members remain in prison.

It was after this attack that MOVE members moved to 6221 Osage Avenue and fortified the house there. Their uncompromising defense of their brothers and sisters in jail has helped insure the hostility of the Philadelphia cops and the city’s political elite.

The newly elected Black mayor, W. Wilson Goode, promised action against MOVE. On the anniversary of the Powelton Village assault, Aug. 8, 1984, cops and fire trucks surrounded the house, but in the end backed down because of a lack of probable cause for an attack. The only crimes that MOVE members could be charged with were minor ones. What followed was months of surveillance and harassment by the cops. City officials upped the rhetoric, calling MOVE violent and “terrorists” in spite of the fact that none of these assertions could be proved.

Cops surrounded the house at 6221 Osage Ave. in West Philly on Mothers’ Day, May 12, 1985, following alleged complaints by neighbors. The PPD had arrest warrants for four MOVE members, signed by Judge Lynne Abraham.

At dawn on May 13, cops forced the evacuation of the neighborhood and attacked the house. Police Commissioner Sambor, speaking over a bullhorn from the command post across the street, shouted, “Attention MOVE, this is America! You have to abide by the laws of the United States!”

Police using automatic weapons, including M-16s, seven Uzi sub-machine guns, two M-60 machine guns, two .50 calibre machine guns, and a 20 mm anti-tank gun, began firing more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes. Fire trucks sprayed the house with 640,000 gallons of water, and assault teams using bombs blew holes in the common walls between the MOVE house and adjoining houses.

These bombs were powerful enough to blow the front off of the first floor of the house. The stated purpose of this assault was to allow the firing of tear gas into the house. In spite of all the gunfire, gas, and explosions, the cops failed to dislodge MOVE members from the house. A cop on the scene reported seeing one dead adult on the first floor.

During the attack, community members tried to appeal to Mayor Goode to stop the assault, pointing out that there were children inside the house. Goode told the media that he was prepared to resolve the MOVE problem “by any means necessary.”

At 5:27 pm, a police helicopter dropped a bomb, made of the explosives C-4 and Tovex, on the roof of the house in order to get rid of what cops and the media term a “bunker.” The “bunker” remained intact, but a fire broke out. On orders of Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor and Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond, the fire burned out of control for an hour before any attempt at fire suppression was made.

By 7 p.m., the MOVE members, having taken shelter in the basement, decided to try to exit through the garage into an alley in the rear. Police SWAT team members opened fire, driving them back inside. Police reported that “armed MOVE members” had come into the alley and opened fire on cops.

What really happened? According to the account of Birdie Africa (age 13 years) published in the book, “Attention Move! This is America!”: “In addition to Ramona and himself, Frank James Africa, Conrad Hampton Africa and probably all five of the other children (Left) Ramona Africa, the lone adult survivor of the police bombing of the MOVE house (below), May 13, 1985.

had tried to get out but were forced by police gunfire back into the rear and garage area of the burning house.” Birdie Africa also was quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 14, 1985, as saying, a MOVE adult had yelled to cops that “The kids are coming out!”

Birdie also told the investigative commission appointed by Mayor Goode that he had seen at least two of the children, Tree and Phil Africa, running down the alley towards Cobbs Creek Parkway. A Detective Stephenson wrote in his report of the events of that day that he saw bodies in the back yard of 6221 Osage Ave.

All the bodies of the dead were later recovered from the wreckage of the house, burned beyond recognition. This raises the question of whether the cops put the bodies back into the burning house to destroy evidence. Shotgun pellets and bullet fragments were discovered in the bodies of John Africa and Rhonda Africa, as well as one of the children, by a pathologist after cops had claimed that none of the dead had sustained gun shot wounds.

The result of this attack was the deaths of six adult members of MOVE, including founder John Africa, and five children. Sixty-one homes were destroyed and more than 250 people were left homeless. Not one of the cops or city officials who perpetrated this crime served a day in jail. One of the survivors, Ramona Africa, is the only person to serve any jail time in this whole catastrophe.

Supporters of justice for those killed and for the survivors held several events in Philadelphia to mark the 25th anniversary. On May 12 at 9 a.m., attorneys for MOVE delivered murder charges against the officials involved in this crime to the court. In Pennsylvania, unlike some other states, private individuals have the right to bring criminal complaints in case the District Attorney fails or refuses to do so. Of course, no one should have any illusions that workers and the oppressed will get any real justice from capitalist courts.

Later that morning, lawyers and supporters, including Dr. Suzanne Ross of the New York Free Mumia Committee and Fred Hampton Jr., spoke at a press conference at the American Friends Service Committee. Attorneys for MOVE explained the basis for the legal case to the press. A rally was held in the evening at Philadelphia’s African American History Museum.

The struggle to free the eight remaining members of the MOVE 9 continues. (One member of the MOVE 9, Merle Africa, died in prison in 1998.) In spite of the fact that MOVE 9 members have been model prisoners, they are being denied parole. The state is insisting that they admit guilt for the events of Aug. 8, 1978, before they can be granted freedom. This flies in the face of evidence that the police officer, Ramp, was killed by police gunfire and not by MOVE.

Support the movement to free the MOVE 9! Demand justice for those killed on May 13, 1985, and prosecute the real criminals! n Arguments for a Justice Dept.

Civil Rights Investigation

A pamphlet by Hans Bennett $3 from Socialist Action Books Order from Socialist Action Books, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610. Please add $1 per pamphlet for shipping.

Scan page 13

A guns of global capitalism when the G8 meet on t least $1 billion will be spent to ‘protect’ the top June 25 in Huntsville, Ontario, and at the G20 Summit on June 26-27 in Toronto. The security tab was boosted by an extra $321 million for the RCMP, with another $262 million going to the Public Safety de-

----- pull-quotes -----

The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal: Innocent Man on Death Row

Pamphlets on Marxism and Socialism