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[kame-sennin]

(Mostly repurposed from my BHM thread)

It's seems incredible that so many people had never heard about the time American law enforcement bombed U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, which, on top of the deaths, left dozens of bystanders' homes destroyed in an uncontrolled fire that the police commissioner told firefighters not to put out right away. The details are so extreme, so over-the-top. How have we forgotten this?

The bombing involved a conflict with a commune of mostly black activists:

MOVE is a Philadelphia-based, self-proclaimed black liberation group founded by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart) in 1972. The group lives communally and frequently engages in public demonstrations against racism, police brutality, and other issues.

The group is particularly known for two major conflicts with the Philadelphia Police. In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of one police officer, injuries to several other people and life sentences for 9 members. In 1985, another standoff was ended when the police dropped a bomb on their compound...

Their neighbors had an ambivalent relationship with the group:

neighbors complained for years that MOVE members were broadcasting political messages by bullhorn at all hours and also about the health hazards created from piles of compost. After the complaints as well as indictments of numerous MOVE members for crimes including parole violations, contempt of court, illegal possession of firearms, and making terrorist threats, then-Mayor W. Wilson Goode and police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor classified MOVE as a terrorist organization.

The police eventually decided to evict MOVE:

This led to an armed standoff with police, who lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. MOVE members fired at the police, who returned fire with automatic weapons.

Commissioner Sambor then ordered that the compound be bombed.

From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound bombs (which the police referred to as "entry devices") made of FBI-supplied water gel explosive, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house.

First-hand accounts:

The police had come with warrants for several people they believed to be in the compound at 6221. No one knew how many weapons the MOVE folks had, or even how many people were in the compound — the police guessed that there were six adults and possibly as many as 12 children inside. The MOVE members had built a bunker on the roof of the house, giving them a clear view of the police positions below.

The final warnings from the police started that morning, a little after 5:30. "Attention, MOVE ... This is America," Gregore Sambor, the police commissioner, yelled into his megaphone to the people in the compound. "You have to abide by the laws of the United States."

There were nearly 500 police officers gathered at the scene, ludicrously, ferociously well-armed — flak jackets, tear gas, SWAT gear, .50- and .60-caliber machine guns, and an anti-tank machine gun for good measure. Deluge guns were pointed from firetrucks. The state police had sent a helicopter. The city had shut off the water and electricity for the entire block. And, we'd come to learn, there were explosives on hand.

Around 6 a.m., the members were told they had 15 minutes to come out. Instead, someone from the MOVE house began shooting at the police. The police returned fire in kind — over and over and over. According to the official report on the event, the police fired 10,000 rounds of ammunition at the MOVE compound over the next 90 minutes; they eventually had to ask the police academy to send more bullets.

Meanwhile, SWAT teams tried to blast holes into the side of the compound via the adjoining row houses. It didn't work.

It was chaos, and it went on like that all day — gunshots and explosions and well-tended homes nearby being shot up and blown apart. In the afternoon, Mayor Wilson Goode held a press conference and told reporters that he wanted to "seize control of the house ... by any means possible."

Everyone on the scene heard the explosion. Television viewers at home saw the moment of impact on TV, and they also saw that the rooftop bunker — the target the bomb was apparently meant to neutralize — was still standing.

But the roof had caught fire, and smoke began billowing over the tops of the row houses. The fire seemed to be getting bigger, but the firefighters were ordered by Sambor, the police commissioner, to stand down. ("I communicated ... that I would like to let the fire burn," he later told the city commission.)

Within 45 minutes, three more homes on the block were on fire, too. Then the roof of the MOVE house buckled under the flames and collapsed. By the time the firefighters finally began fighting the fire in earnest, it was too late. Within 90 minutes, the entire north side of Osage Avenue was on fire.

Philadelphia's streets are famously narrow, making it easy for the fire to leap from burning trees on the north side to more homes on the south side. Then the flames spilled over to the homes behind 6221 Osage, to Pine Street. By evening, three rows of homes were completely on fire, a conflagration so large that the flames could be seen from planes landing at Philadelphia International Airport, more than 6 miles away. Smoke could be seen from across the city.

"Drop a bomb on a residential area? I never in my life heard of that," a neighborhood resident told a reporter that night. "It's like Vietnam."

Over the years, Africa has maintained that when MOVE members tried to escape the burning building to surrender, the police opened fire on them and they were forced back inside. The police have steadfastly denied this.

By the time the fire was finally under control, a little before midnight, 61 houses on that tidy block had been completely destroyed. Two hundred fifty people were suddenly, shockingly, without homes. It was the worst residential fire in the city's history.

In the end, 11 people died in the fire. Five of them were children. It took weeks before the police were able to identify their remains.

Only two people managed to make it out of the MOVE compound alive: a woman named Ramona Africa and a young boy named Birdie Africa.

City police had killed nearly a dozen people and, in the process, leveled an entire swath of a neighborhood full of middle-class black homeowners. Neither the mayor who approved the bombing nor the officers who carried it out faced any official repercussions.

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...till-trying-to-make-sense-of-the-move-bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-did-we-forget-the-move-bombing

Democracy Now! piece:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/13/25_years_ago_philadelphia_police_bombs

PBS documentary:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/let-the-fire-burn/

Frontline episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eHpRjxk7N4

 

[Eidan]

Adding to the list of videos on the subject, everyone should watch Let the Fire Burn, a great documentary on the subject. It's on Netflix.

 

[Leatherface]

I never knew this. Holy shit!

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

I'm embarrassed to say I just learned about this earlier in the year thanks to a GAF thread. I had no idea.

 

[Loxley]

Man I live in Philly and have never heard about this

 

[Sulik2]

Never heard of this before. Absolutely horrifying and of course no one faced charges since they were just killing black people. The USA has been such a broken country for so long.

 

[BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO]

I will never understand why blacks are so passive and dont hate America more. We should be flipping the fuck out and burning down buildings and shit. Low key , I think we got some next level Stockholm syndrome shit.

Never heard of this before. Absolutely horrifying and of course no one faced charges since they were just killing black people. The USA has been such a broken country for so long.

And this why vigilante justice and against the system is the Answer.

 

[kame-sennin]

Man I live in Philly and have never heard about this

As a reminder, there's no statute of limitations on murder. There are people who could still be prosecuted for this.

 

[PopeReal]

I only learned about it last year. Never heard shit about it, anywhere. Living in America.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

remember black lives matter but don't you dare protest in a way that inconveniences me so quietly protest off to the side so I can go about my day because tackling systemic racism makes me uncomfortable.

Never heard of this before. Absolutely horrifying and of course no one faced charges since they were just killing black people. The USA has been such a broken country for so long.

it was broken before it's inception.

 

[Admodieus]

Adding to the list of videos on the subject, everyone should watch Let the Fire Burn, a great documentary on the subject. It's on Netflix.

This. Fantastic documentary.

 

[akira28]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avYKeCoZz1E

 

[Hagi]

They fucking bombed them? seriously? holy shit everything about this is insane.

I will never understand why blacks are so passive and dont hate America more. We should be flipping the fuck out and burning down buildings and shit. Low key , I think we got some next level Stockholm syndrome shit.

And this why vigilante justice and against the system is the Answer.

Taking away the fact that a minority can seemingly get shot for scratching their ass menacingly I don't think vigilante justice is going to get you anywhere other than dead.

 

[victreeb3l]

I had no idea this even happened. Thats absolutely sickening.

 

[BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO]

Taking away the fact that a minority can seemingly get shot for scratching their ass menacingly I don't think vigilante justice is going to get you anywhere other than dead.

Really? Why were the police so afraid of black panthers then? Had to use espionage and psychological warfare to take them out because gbet were scared shirtless to go up against them normally.

 

[Hagi]

Really? Why were the police so afraid of black panthers then? Had to use espionage and psychological warfare to take them out because gbet were scared shirtless to go up against them normally.

You are talking about "burning down buildings and shit". Shit presumably being shorthand for stupid shit. Police also used a lot of bullets to take out the Panthers as well. I think that's the route they would go for in your instance.

 

[IrishNinja]

...goddamn

i remember reading something about this a while back, but not nearly to this extent. at the very least, how did the other homeowners not sue the living shit out of the city? that many wrongful deaths/property damage, it's insane

 

[glow]

I will never understand why blacks are so passive and dont hate America more. We should be flipping the fuck out and burning down buildings and shit. Low key , I think we got some next level Stockholm syndrome shit.

No one is stopping you from doing this. You don't need other people to help you flip out and burn down buildings. Be creative and don't let loneliness stop you. God bless.

 

[Splatterpunk]

I'm embarrassed to say I just learned about this earlier in the year thanks to a GAF thread. I had no idea.

Same here. Really crazy shit.

 

[ryutaro's mama]

I never knew this. Holy shit!

There's a reason for that. America likes burying its skeletons deep in the closet.

 

[womp]

I remember this being on the news all day when it happened...Live special reporting from all the local stations. Feels like yesterday. Shocked to see how many never knew or heard of it, it was huge at the time and not just locally.

 

[dabig2]

I remember this being on the news all day when it happened...Live special reporting from all the local stations. Feels like yesterday. Shocked to see how many never knew or heard of it, it was huge at the time and not just locally.

It's by design. America would like it just fine if we forget it like the genocide against Black Wall St., lynchings, and all the other horrifying shit this country has inflicted upon black people for centuries.

 

[obin_gam]

The Dollop podcast (made famous here on GAF for their Iraq War episode) has a great episode about this. Highly recommended listening.
http://thedollop.libsyn.com/john-africa

 

[EdibleKnife]

As a reminder, there's no statute of limitations on murder. There are people who could still be prosecuted for this.

Isn't it time to forgive and forget though, kame? I mean if prosecutions happened today, I wouldn't be able to keep living in my bubble of ignorant bliss where I can get by just thinking black people have a perpetual chip on their shoulders.

Seriously though, in a world where Nazi war criminals still often answer for their crimes, this shit should be a no brainier but of course:

It's by design. America would like it just fine if we forget it like the genocide against Black Wall St., lynchings, and all the other horrifying shit this country has inflicted upon black people for centuries.

Probably one of the most insidious pillars of black oppression. Not only is it rarely thought or remembered in the mainstream but people are made to be convinced that they don't have to know. Stick to slavery being the worst thing that the US ever inflicted on black people and you get to paint America a singly heroic for ending it. People are satisfied with just that narrative and ignore how deep the damage goes. Ignore the pathological need to crush black existences in any form that blooms from centuries of that kind of sick and intense inhumanity.

 

[EdibleKnife]

The Dollop podcast (made famous here on GAF for their Iraq War episode) has a great episode about this. Highly recommended listening.
http://thedollop.libsyn.com/john-africa

Yeah this was an incredible episode of the podcast. Thanks for the link!

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

Man I live in Philly and have never heard about this

Really? I thought everyone here knew about this.

 

[PeskyToaster]

Damn. Who the hell would greenlight dropping a bomb in the middle of Philadelphia?

 

[Stinkles]

Disgusting.


Statue of limitations should only apply to cases where no concrete evidence or confession exist. Same with double jeopardy. Both of those have been leapfrogged by technology. They made sense once upon a time. But we have better methods of dealing with old and cold cases. From DNA evidence to cross agency cooperation.

 

[Sadsic]

Yeah this was an incredible episode of the podcast. Thanks for the link!

they actually did a sequel podcast about the mayor and police chief from that era, mayor rizzo in a later podcast. gives you more idea of what was going on in philly at that time (it was racist as fuck basically)

 

[PeskyToaster]

Disgusting.


Statue of limitations should only apply to cases where no concrete evidence or confession exist. Same with double jeopardy. Both of those have been leapfrogged by technology. They made sense once upon a time. But we have better methods of dealing with old and cold cases. From DNA evidence to cross agency cooperation.

Double jeopardy is our protection against the government. Kind of silly to just give it up. Unless you want to make it easier for the government to oppress people through the legal process?

 

[Netherscourge]

Damn. Who the hell would greenlight dropping a bomb in the middle of Philadelphia?

The Mayor at the time, Wilson Goode.

And he was African American and he won a second term after this happened.

 

[Stinkles]

Double jeopardy is our protection against the government. Kind of silly to just give it up. Unless you want to make it easier for the government to oppress people through the legal process?

I'm suggesting exceptions rather than complete elimination. Confessions or irrefutable evidence for example.

 

[EdibleKnife]

they actually did a sequel podcast about the mayor and police chief from that era, mayor rizzo in a later podcast. gives you more idea of what was going on in philly at that time (it was racist as fuck basically)

Ah that's next on the list then! Thanks!

 

[Vilix]

I will never understand why blacks are so passive and dont hate America more. We should be flipping the fuck out and burning down buildings and shit. Low key , I think we got some next level Stockholm syndrome shit.

And this why vigilante justice and against the system is the Answer.

Wrong. Mob justice just inflames the issues even more.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Holy shit. It's crazy how information about many atrocities against black people are just flat out suppressed or forgotten about.

The burning of a prosperous black community, using black people as guinea pigs in drug testing with no ethics/morals, this and it's still just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[kame-sennin]

Wrong. Mob justice just inflames the issues even more.

I don't know that that's true. The KKK used mob violence to completely destroy reconstruction and win better terms for the South than the Confederate army did.

 

[LUFTRAUSER]

I don't know that that's true. The KKK used mob violence to completely destroy reconstruction and win better terms for the South than the Confederate army did.

The KKK used terrorism as well, though I don't think the word existed then. I don't think there's ever been a black American terrorist group in the United States, however.

 

[EdibleKnife]

Holy shit. It's crazy how information about many atrocities against black people are just flat out suppressed or forgotten about.

The burning of a prosperous black community, using black people as guinea pigs in drug testing with no ethics/morals, this and it's still just the tip of the iceberg.

It's the kind of thing that makes me sick to my stomach when I think of the sanitized history I ended up learing

 

[FreedomFighter]

You guys should check out this episode of Empire Files. Abby Martin interviews Pam Afrika, Ramona Afrika, and discusses the Move Bombing.

 

[Laguna X]

Adding to the list of videos on the subject, everyone should watch Let the Fire Burn, a great documentary on the subject. It's on Netflix.

Unfortunately, did a search on Netflix and couldn't find it.

 

[EdibleKnife]

Unfortunately, did a search on Netflix and couldn't find it.

Yeah looked on FlixFindr and it seems the only place it's on is iTunes

 

[kame-sennin]

The KKK used terrorism as well, though I don't think the word existed then. I don't think there's ever been a black American terrorist group in the United States, however.

Yeah, I was lumping terrorism, riots, and mob violence together. Basically, anything not considered full guerrilla warfare.

There have been black groups who were labeled as terrorists. How well they fit that label probably depends on your viewpoint. The Black Liberation Army is probably the most famous. But no militant black organization has ever come close to the levels of terrorism perpetrated by the KKK.

 

[Memory]

Never heard of this before, some messed up shit.

 

[Cow Mengde]

I'm also guilty of not knowing about this until today. This is horrible and should be brought up.

 

[TheTurboFD]

My mother used to tell me about this yearly around this time since I live in philly. I never paid attention to it much until I took my criminal justice class. Man did that class open my eyes to my city. I learned a lot about my city that I just never paid attention to. Especially the whole Kaboni Savage thing that went on a couple blocks from my house.

 

[Eidan]

Unfortunately, did a search on Netflix and couldn't find it.

Really? Shit, I saw it on there as recently as a month ago. Should've known it'd probably be gone by now.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

Holy shit. It's crazy how information about many atrocities against black people are just flat out suppressed or forgotten about.

The burning of a prosperous black community, using black people as guinea pigs in drug testing with no ethics/morals, this and it's still just the tip of the iceberg.

The crazy thing is when racists/apologists pretend like they don't know why there are problems in the black community or when they jump around and whine when whites in power choose to do something about the damage to the black community from time to time. The devil's advocate charade and being against the blacks on all the key issues grows tiresome. It's like when you know a guy pretending to be serious like Paul Ryan is a joke character. Why do people put up with folks who are clearly garbage and wasting your time intellectually about things like welfare or criminal justice reform?

 

[EdibleKnife]

You guys should check out this episode of Empire Files. Abby Martin interviews Pam Afrika, Ramona Afrika, and discusses the Move Bombing.

Great Episode. Thank you

 

[Soapbox Killer]

I highly recommend the "The bombing of West Philly". On YouTube

I live a block away from Osage Avenue and the block has never fully recovered.

Its sad.

 

[EdibleKnife]

I highly recommend the "The bombing of West Philly". On YouTube

I live a block away from Osage Avenue and the block has never fully recovered.

Its sad.

Added to my Watch Later. Thanks
I should share this and the other Youtube vid on Facebook too