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May 13th 1985-War On Osage Avenue
"If MOVE go down, not only will everybody in this block go down, the
knee joints of America will break and the body of America will soon fall
and we mean it,"..."We ain't gone fuck around, if them mutha fuckers try
anything next door we gone burn 'em the fuck out, if they succeed in
commin thru the walls they are goin to find smoke, gas, fire and bullets...
Before we let you mutha fuckers make an example of us we will burn this
mutha fuckinin house down and burn you up with us. We know about all
those odorless chemicals yall can put thru walls to paralyze people or
put people to sleep, or even kill people..."But we got detectors, we got
canaries, and we got seorians (possibly a reference to saurians, which
are lizards)... if that detector shows signs of foreign odor in the basement
or any other part of this house, if any of our canaries drop dead, or if any
of our seorians begin to vomit or wheeze, we are goin to burn that god
dam house down next door and burn them mutha fuckers up in it."
-Excerpt From A Letter MOVE Members Sent To Philadelphia Mayor
Wilson Goode Two Days Before The May 13th, 1985 “Confrontation”
Between MOVE And the Police
On May 13th, 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a
satchel filled with explosives from a helicopter on the heavily fortified
rowhome headquarters of the MOVE Organization. At the end of that
fateful day, 11 people would lose their lives, a neighborhood would be
burned to the ground, and one of the greatest missteps of a city
government in U.S. history would be committed.
The “bombing” occurred when police attempted to arrest at least four
MOVE members on a variety of charges, including riot, illegal possession
of explosives, and terroristic threats.
The MOVE members named in the affidavits were Frank James Africa,
Conrad Hampton Africa, Ramona Johnson Africa, and Theresa Brooks
Africa, all of whom police said resided in the Osage Avenue house.
In addition, police said they wanted to arrest Frank James Africa, son of
Louise James, the owner of the house, for parole violations.
"MOVE is determined to provoke an armed confrontation," the police
stated in the affidavit, "and will resist with deadly force any effort to serve
lawful process."
The police said they had monitored MOVE's statements made over the
group's loudspeakers in recent weeks and had heard MOVE members
make a series of threats against Mayor Goode, the police, and the
residents on Osage Avenue. MOVE members had also sent a
threatening letter to Mayor Goode, in which they threatened to kill him.
MOVE had given authorities no choice but to attempt to arrest the law-
breaking members of the sect, but MOVE was not going to surrender
without a fight. Members of the cult had erected a rooftop bunker fortified
with railroad ties and heavy timber, from which MOVE members could
command the high ground in any confrontation with city police. In doing
so, they had threatened to turn the quiet African-American neighborhood
that they inhabited into a war zone.
Prior to the police assault on the MOVE house, authorities had repeatedly
implored MOVE members to surrender or to at least allow the children to
leave the house. MOVE not only refused this request, they issued more
threats over their gasoline powered bullhorn and began shooting at the
officers surrounding their headquarters. A number of officers were struck
by the MOVE gunfire. However, unlike the previous confrontation in 1978,
they were spared serious injury or death by bullet proof vests.
With gunfire raining down from MOVE’s fortified house that contained an
unidentified number of children, police were left placed in a most unique
and difficult situation. It made the decision making process fraught with
peril.
This rooftop bunker was a crucial element in the decision-making on
Osage Avenue on May 13th. Police initially planned to blow holes in the
party walls of the MOVE house to insert tear gas and force MOVE
members into the street. When that plan failed - early in the morning -
Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor became convinced that the
bunker had to be destroyed for police to gain the high ground and drive
MOVE out of its fortress.
By virtue of their bunker, Sambor would tell the MOVE commission that,
MOVE members had "complete command of the Osage Avenue access
over the roofs; they were in an enviable tactical position."
Sambor said that after the morning setback, he and his field commanders
explored during the afternoon the possibility of using a crane to dismantle
the bunker. The concept proved unworkable and unsafe on such short
notice.
Shortly before 5 p.m., Sambor approved a plan to drop a bomb from a
state police helicopter to accomplish two goals: opening a hole in the roof
to insert tear gas, and dislodging the bunker.
It was that bomb, the fire marshal's office concluded in July of 1985, that
triggered the fire that consumed the MOVE compound and 60
neighboring homes.
As if the rooftop bunker was not enough of an obstacle to extricating
MOVE members from their fortified headquarters, it was discovered later
that they had a secondary bunker complete with gun-ports on the first floor
of the house. This second bunker was constructed much like the first and
afforded MOVE members another position to fire at Officers while
remaining relatively safe from the thousands of rounds police would shoot
into the house.
One might wonder what led to the transformation of a working class
neighborhood in West Philadelphia into a blood soaked landscape of
urban warfare. The answer lies within the mind of MOVE’s founder John
Africa.
MOVE’s “Coordinator,” as his devotees called John Africa, led his
followers on a path of psychological warfare against their neighbors and a
policy of increasingly provocative actions against city officials and
institutions. The stated goal was to force the government to release the
nine MOVE members who had been incarcerated for amongst other
things, the murder of Police Officer James Ramp, in 1978.
In order to accomplish this impossible goal, MOVE initiated their
campaign of torture against their neighbors, telling them in effect, “we are
going to put pressure on you, so you will put pressure on the city to let our
people go.”
In 1984, MOVE’s assault on their neighborhood began. According to one
resident of Osage Avenue."They could go on for hours on that
loudspeaker system of theirs," recalled Marguerite Walker, of 6217
Osage. "Sometimes they would start at 3 in the afternoon and they would
stay on there until 1 o'clock at night. Different times they would come on.
But you know, with that kind of thing you are tense all the time. You are just
always wondering when it is going to come on. "So you never relax."
But, for the residents of Osage Avenue, the bullhorn assault was only the
beginning. There were also the barrels of raw meat that MOVE members
fed their dogs and the smell of cat urine that hung in the air.
The foul stink of what residents believed to be human excrement and
unwashed bodies filled the summer air, making children and adults
physically sick.
An omnipresent stench rose up from the MOVE house, seeping through
screen doors and forcing people inside. The MOVE people kept dozens
of cats and dogs, but never cared much about controlling them. One day,
Osage Avenue resident, Bennett Walker was working in the back of his
house when he remembered "noticing this smell."
"So I looked around, and then there were all these dead kittens. They
were covered with flies. I had to go and throw them out."
In the spring, another Osage Avenue resident, Pearl Watkins enjoyed
drying her wash on a clothesline - she liked the fresh air and sunshine on
the clothing. But she feared the flies that fed on the garbage and waste at
the MOVE house. So she was forced to hang her clothes to dry in the
basement.
Inez Nichols of 6228 Osage remembered the flies as well. "I couldn't open
my screen door because for some reason, not the small flies, but those
big, green flies - when I opened the door, it seemed like there was a
swarm of them that said, 'We're coming in.' So I went around with a fly
swatter - banging, banging, banging."
"How did it smell?" asked Shirleen Benson of the odor that clung to the
neighborhood. "How does filth smell? It has an odor of its own. Something
rotten or dead."
Other MOVE neighbors reportedly had to turn on their stoves to clear out
armies of roaches before they could cook their families dinner at night.
As if the stink, and infestations, and bullhorn harangues were not enough
of an assault on civility, MOVE would also singled out certain neighbors
for particularly brutal treatment. There would also be ominous threats of
violence on the part of MOVE members against children.
Maugerite Walker would tell reporters that: "On the loudspeaker, Conrad
(Africa) used to shout that he was a rapist. He would get on there and say
that he used to go into people's houses through their skylights and rape
young virgins."
As the war on their own community waged on, MOVE brandished firearms
terrifying children and convincing adults that MOVE had no intention of
living peaceably.
Finally, fed up, and fearing for the safety of themselves and their families,
MOVE’s embattled neighbors demanded that the city take action. What
resulted was the deaths of six MOVE adults and five children, all of whose
parents were imprisoned MOVE members and the destruction of Osage
Avenue.
In order to save the community, the city apparently made the decision to
destroy it.
Only two people survived the “confrontation”, MOVE’s Minister of
Communications. Ramona Africa and a child who went by the name of
“Birdy.”
Ramona spent seven years in prison for her role in the conflict and after
her release, she won a multi-million dollar judgement against the city of
Philadelphia. She remains MOVE’s Minister of Communication and is
the most visible and celebrated of MOVE’s membership.
Birdy was rescued from life in MOVE by his father, who was never a
MOVE member. He has not returned to the cult and, quite
understandably, has chosen to live a private life.
The resulting fallout from the city’s actions led to the mayor empaneling a
special “MOVE Commission” that would have limited powers and no
ability to hand down indictments. The commission’s findings savaged the
city government’s handling of the crisis, but ultimately laid the blame for
the catastrophe squarely at the feet of MOVE members and their actions.
The commission concluded that it was "unconscionable" for the top city
officials to have decided to drop a bomb on an occupied rowhouse,
"unconscionable" for them to have allowed the fire to burn so that it could
be used as a tactical weapon, and "grossly negligent" for them to have
initiated the assault on the MOVE house on the morning of May 13th,
knowing children were inside.
Despite the commission’s findings of official wrongdoing, the city's
District Attorney never saw fit to bring charges against any member of the
city government for their roles in the tragic events of May 13th, 1985.
For the residents of Osage Avenue, they are still having to fight for proper
housing and compensation. Despite spending millions of dollars to
rebuild the block, the new homes are of low quality. In April 2005, MOVE’
s former neighbors were in court testifying that: “20 years later, we've
been through hell... when it rains, water drips from her ceiling, they gave us
a cute little dollhouse built with balsa wood and crazy glue."
For MOVE members things are not much better. Although they did win
multi-million dollar judgements against the city, the group lost six adults
and five children that day. And what of the “MOVE 9," upon whose behalf
MOVE waged war? They are still imprisoned, having yet another appeal
recently turned down by the courts. This raises the likelihood that they will
not have a chance for freedom until 2008, when they will be first eligible for
parole.
