MOVE: Or When the Philly Police Dropped a Bomb on a Residential Neighborhood

Believe it or not, in 1985 the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb from a helicopter onto a residential building in an African-American neighborhood. The fact that this story isn't more widely known says it all. Listen and learn about MOVE today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention, Chicago and Toronto. We're coming to see you guys soon,
so we better hurry up and buy your tickets because
they're going fast. Yeah, man, Chicago at the Hairs Theater July.
We've actually sold a lot of tickets now, yeah, you
guys listen, thank you, thanks for stepping up. In Toronto
at the Danforth Music Hall the next night, July. It
may be sold out by now. Yeah. Well, there's only

(00:21):
one way to find out. Go on to s y
s K live dot com and you'll find links to
the ticket sites and all the show info you need,
and we will see you soon. Welcome to Stuff You
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh.

(00:45):
You got to get used to this, Chuck. We will eventually.
It's the new normal. Yep. And this is Stuff You
Should Know. The I Can't Believe this happened edition one
of many, one of many. Yeah, this sparked off a
lot of ideas too. Oh yeah, yeah, like how the
Phillies work? No, what's up with the Philly fanatic? That's

(01:10):
the green one right, Yeah, that's a great character. So
let's dispense with all that. Okay, Yeah, there's gonna be
a long one, so let's just jump in. Okay. So
back in and May, Philadelphia Police Department became the first
and to this point only police department to drop a

(01:34):
bomb on American soil. No police department has ever bombed
anything in the history of America, but they did, and
they happened to bomb a house that was occupied at
the time with thirteen people, seven of which were children.
And the people in this house were members of an
organization called Move m O V E all caps, but

(01:56):
it's not an acronym UM. And they did this because
MOVE had made themselves quite a nuisance in the neighborhood,
to say the least. And there was basically, by this
time in a bitter feud between MOVE in the Philadelphia

(02:16):
Police Department, and on May thirteenth, that came to a
fiery and tragic and it's nice set up. You should
have music playing or something. Hopefully Josh will do that,
because God knows, Jerry's not going to not anywhere anywhere,
knows where she is. So you want to go back
in time and talk a little bit about MOVE in
their origins and then go forward in time. I would

(02:39):
like to isn't that what you said? Okay, So MOVE
is still around UM at the times over the years,
they've been called a cult, They've been called UM, a
black liberation movement, back to Earth, a terrorist group, animal
rights group. There are all these things to a certain
degree here and there UM. Although the leader one Mr

(03:01):
Vincent Leppard, who everyone, by the way, if you hear
us say the name so and so Africa. Once you
become a member of MOVE you take on the last
name of Africa, which even though they weren't strictly a
group for African Americans, they had white people early on
in Puerto Ricans. They definitely kind of got that wrapped

(03:21):
a little bit more because of the Black Power movement
and the fact that the leader was black. Changed his
name to Africa and asked everyone else to change their
last name to Africa. But although not legally, I don't
think no no UM, but ultimately it was well, they
wouldn't have done it legally because that's part of the system,
and the system was one of the things they were against.
There were basically two prongs to John Africa's philosophy. One

(03:42):
was that basically all life is important and equally important. Yeah.
So there was a lot of animal rights stuff. There
was a lot of not eating meat um ostensibly um.
It was there vegetarianism in there. There there was, although
they weren't strict vegetarians. Um. Yes, but there was an
animal rights and protection in the sanctity of life. And

(04:05):
then the second was that the um the system as
they called it, was inherently flawed because everything that was
created by humans was flawed and therefore not not only
should not be used, but the whole system should be
taken down and replaced with a much more natural, um
animalistic philosophy in way of life. Yeah. So that includes electricity,

(04:31):
that includes like cooking meat. Um, like these kids ate
raw chicken, believe it or not. You know, the kids
who were raised in the move movement. Uh. And this
is um. This story would make a lot more sense
if this was on like, uh, some deserted island and
someone was moving there to start this utopian society on

(04:51):
an island. This is a very interesting story, and that
it happened in a densely populated area of row houses
in West Philadelphia, not where you would I can't not
think I remember I hear West Philadelphia. I thought of
it too. Um, it's when you go back and look

(05:11):
at the footage. And by the way, there's a great
documentary called Let It Burn, Let the Fire Burn that
you should pay for online. I did. That's good on
Amazon Prime, and uh, well I'm a Prime member, so
so am I I still had to pay to rent
it though, because Amazon is part of the system. That's right. Uh,

(05:31):
where was that going? Uh you were saying that it
would make more sense on a deserted island than in
a densely populated neighborhood and Philadelphia. Yeah, so when you're
watching this documentary and there's so much footage, Um, it's
crazy to see this house, this row house, uh, set
up with um, you know, farm animals at times in

(05:52):
the front yard, heavily fenced in, fortified like a fortress. Yeah,
sometimes people standing outside with guns. Um. Even though, as
we'll see, are these guns were later found out to
be not capable of firing bullets, which means, well, I
guess it's still a gun, but it means it's not
a weapon. It's a club. Yeah sort of. Um, but
at the very least, it's just it's an odd setting

(06:12):
for this story. It is, And when you watch that documentary,
that house sticks out like a sore thumb like this.
They had Amish people probably an hour and a half
away from this, doing the same thing out in the
middle of the country. Not the exact same thing, but
you know what I'm saying. But you can't get a
good cheese steak in Amish country, much less a good
raw one. You can get good stick candy because they

(06:35):
know what they're doing with that stuff. Nice furniture. Butter sure,
what was it rum Springer where they get to go
crazy or whatever and see if they want to live
the Amish life? I think, yeah, I think that was it.
That was a good one. It's a good time ago.
But anyway, it's a very interesting setting for this story. Um,
it got caught up in or maybe unfairly pegged as
black liberation, like I said, but sort of because of

(06:57):
the time in which it happened, which was in the
in the seventies and early eighties when the Black Panther
Party was in power. That was a former Black Panther
that later would join the move movement. Yes, but from
what I saw in that documentary, that person was interviewed
and he makes it sound like rather than bringing the

(07:18):
Black Panther ideas to left, he he took on moves
ideals rather than the discarded the Black Panther's idea. Yeah,
I think he was disillusioned with the Black Panthers because
of the violence. And it should be pointed out that
Um that Africa's whole thing was was his whole thing
was non violence. But it wasn't like that was at

(07:39):
the forefront of like his everyday talkings, because they very
aggressively and very obscenely blasted their message through these loudspeakers
attached to this row house, which was a real problem
in this neighborhood for everyone this you know, black neighborhood.
They didn't want him there either. No, that's don't drop
a bottom up on him, which is what one of them,

(08:00):
being interviewed very clearly was like, we didn't want this
to happen, but you know, they were a threat to
our well being here in the neighborhood. Yeah, And they
were also deliberately provocative. They they purposefully made a nuisance
side of themselves because part of moves Um philosophy was
waking everybody else up and doing it in a really

(08:20):
aggressive hostile way. Supposedly, some neighbors reported that they were
directly threatened by this group, which is a big problem too.
I mean, that's definitely a couple of steps up from um.
Agitating or aggravating people. Threatening them is different, sure, but
at the very least, you know, imagine being a neighbor

(08:42):
who has lived in this house for twenty years and
all of a sudden there's this organization living there, and
at three in the morning, it's just blasting out. You know,
these mf ers and that are in charge or F
and this and F and that, and like I felt
sorry for these citizens. You know, is a lot of
empathy like to be dispersed among many parts of this story, yes,

(09:05):
but the story also this Basically, this story has two
types of people in it, um villains and innocence. That's
virtually here. There's Almos. There's one hero that you can
point to, and he doesn't even appear in this article.
He was in the documentary UM, which we'll talk about
him for a minute later. But it's mostly just people,

(09:30):
the adults acting badly and the children or the people
in the neighborhood who are innocent bystanders or pawns. In
this whole thing. Victims for sure, for sure, because when
you're talking about like blaring your your philosophy and a
very hostile, um foul mouthed way. If you see the

(09:51):
pictures of the house, like those loudspeakers that they have
it like stock car races or whatever, that's what they
had posted out on the house. It wasn't just some
with the bullhorn or like that that umlwaukie talkie thing
that Homer Simpson had at the yard sale. And you
can hear this along the whole block in every direction. Yes,
and if you were anywhere near them, if your house

(10:12):
was next door, even a couple of doors down, you
heard them night and day. And it was a real problem. Yeah,
So we should back up a little bit and give
a little bit of the background here. Before the nineteen
eighties happened and they moved into the second house on
O Sage Avenue. U Um, they loved at a different
house in the late seventies, and there was a different

(10:34):
mayor in Philadelphia at this time, Mayor Rizzo, who was
a scumbag, tough talking like, yeah, he was a scumbag,
I'm just kidding. I saw archival footage of the man
and he was strongman, scumbag. Yeah, he was one of
these guys, you know, and we'll see what happened here.
It was, uh, he was not in charge anymore, but

(10:55):
it was remnants from that attitude basically that he laid
down in the city, which is like he was in charge.
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm talking about the bombing. Um. So
in seventy eight, there was a standoff with the police.
We had talked about the guns earlier. It was later
found out that these guns weren't capable of firing. They
didn't know that at the time, but at the very least,

(11:16):
the cops over acted or overreacted at the UH at
the declaration of Mayor Rizzo, and there was shooting. There
was an officer that was shot and killed and it
was just a really bad scene. So even just a
little bit before that too, there was UM there was

(11:36):
a confrontation between MOVE and the Philadelphia police where one
of the MOVE members babies, like a two month old
um died yeah, of and the MOVE members said the
cops did this like this, like this baby died from
this confrontation with the police, So like that kicks that off.

(11:57):
The police eventually raid the Move house in and one
of the officers get shot and killed in this raid,
and so you've got some real bad blood brewing between
these two groups. Yeah. And during that raid, Delbert Africa,
one of the members was and that you can see

(12:17):
the footage of this, It was all captured on camera. Uh,
just beaten on the street while laying on the sidewalk
by these cops while he was surrendering. Yeah. So, uh,
to say that there was bad blood is sort of
an understatement. It was you had on one side, a
um what you could at least define as a public
nuisance in this neighborhood. You had on this other side,

(12:39):
these the zealous mayor who just wanted to get rid
of them period. Not like let's meet and let's talk,
let's see if we can all work together. Uh. They were.
They were one hundred thousand percent at odds with one another.
So the police officer that died, Um, the Move side
said we didn't shoot that guy. It was friendly fire

(13:02):
that got him. The Philadelphia Police Department didn't agree with
that story. And so I'm like a personal level, like
not just an organizational level, but to a cop, the
cops hated Move and these people just continued on in
Philadelphia and actually stepped up there, um, making themselves a

(13:24):
public nuisance. Uh, because nine of their members were arrested
for the murder of that police officer, Yes, and sent
to jail for decades years is what they're each sentence for. Uh.
We'll talk about what happened to them towards the end,
but so so just to kind of like like just

(13:45):
paint this one last stroke on this this picture we're
painting here. The cops had a vendetta against MOVE because
one of their own was killed during the siege, and
MOVE had a vendetta against the cops because nine of
their people were put in jail, one of them was beaten,
and a baby had died on their side. Okay, all right,

(14:05):
let's take a break and we'll come back write it
for this and talk more about what happened. Alright. So

(14:40):
whether or not this was a cult is uh. Some
people debate that. John Africa is very much on record
saying it's an organization. Um is that relevant? I don't
think so. I don't either. Um, like it's just an
attempt to discredit them, oh, to call them occult. Huh, Yeah,
I don't know. I think it's all we're talking about.
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not like criticizing you or anything

(15:03):
like that. I'm just saying, like when people toss it
around like oh they were a cult. Yeah, there there
were some like characteristics that that you could say, well,
it's kind of cult like or whatever. Let's put it
this way. If it was on a deserted island, then
I think people would have straight up called them ac cult.
The fact that it was in the neighborhood and West
Philadelphia made it seem a lot less, so I hear you.
But if he was like, come here and live on

(15:24):
this island with me, then it would have straight up
been called a cult. Let me rephrase what I was saying.
I don't dispute that they may have been a cult,
but again it's that, well, does that mean that they
should have had a bomb dropped on them? I don't
think anyone thinks that. Okay, So uh, Like I said
that there were kids there that were um forced to

(15:46):
eat raw fish, raw chicken, um. The adults could cook
their meat, which was there was definitely some double standards
going on there. Their rationale was that our bodies are
used to this, but we want to raise you you
pure from the start, so you're only gonna eat raw foods. Yeah.
They had a lot of exceptions, not just that, um,
like the anti technology thing where they had like a

(16:09):
wood burning stove for heat and that was it. No,
they used candles instead of lightbulbs, that kind of stuff.
But they also had phones and they drove cars. So
there was a lot of um, weird exceptions in in
loopholes and holes in general and John Africa's guidelines as
he called them. Yeah. As for one of the more uh,

(16:31):
the the only child that survived this experience, Birdie Africa,
Michael Ward. Uh, he said, I'm still afraid of them,
of move. Some of the things that went on there.
I can't get out of my head. Bad things. I
haven't told anyone except for my father, but I'll tell
you this. I didn't like being there. They said it
was a family, but a family isn't something where you're

(16:51):
forced to stay and you don't want to uh. And
his contention was that the kids were always trying to
get out of there and run away. They were just
too little to know how two little and you know, naked,
they were naked, they were malnourished. Um, they were uh.
Like the only toys they had they had to hide
because they weren't supposed to have them because it's technology

(17:12):
and human made unsanitary. Yeah, there was, um you know,
part of part of what move was into is growing
their own food, so they would compost like in the
alley behind the house or on the roof or something
like that. They had they built an animal shelter in
the alley. So um there was a lot of really
um uh like not okay conditions to raise kids and

(17:37):
let alone like adults to live in but raising children. Um,
it was. There was some really bad decisions and choices
are bad outcomes from some of John Africa's philosophy. Yeah,
it's weird because it's like at the heart of this,
it's this back to nature movement. You know, where you
want them to be on a deserted island, So not
even a deserted island, like go out into like there's

(17:59):
there's country side not too far outside of Philadelphia. It
is a little weird. It is. It's very strange because
on one hand, I'm like, yeah, this animal rights group
and they're back to nature and they're assuing the things
of man. But they're doing it the most like aggressive,
antagonistic way possible in the middle of the city. It's like,
I don't I didn't know what to think about any
of this except obviously you don't go in there and

(18:20):
fire bomb the place, right. It's like the one thing
I was clear on, right, you don't start a war
in the middle of a neighborhood, which is what happened. Basically, Um,
the neighbors wanted to move out, they fired filed a
bunch of complaints over the years to get them shut down,
and the city didn't really know what to do at

(18:41):
this point. Um. At this point there was a different mayor,
Um Mayor Good. So this was the first black mayor
of Philadelphia who actually was elected on this reform ticket,
basically to get rid of Rizzo, get rid of the corruption,
the racism that Rizzo had had and as administration had
fostered because he was police chief first and then became mayor.

(19:07):
And he basically after that nine raid. Um, there's footage
of him just basically hopped up and boasting about how
how militarized the Chicago p D was now, how like
they could I think he actually said, yeah, we could
go down to Cuba and take them if we wanted
to right now just really like boasting about this, not like,

(19:30):
oh man, you know this was this is a tragedy
or whatever, even however you want to say it, like
he was boasting like come on, who's next kind of thing,
and this is this was the mayor at the time.
So Wilson Good comes along as like not that we're
going to take a different tact here and try to
promote more unity. Then he was actually pretty successful in
a lot of ways in that respect as far as

(19:52):
the city officials go. I really kind of like Mayor
Good because he took responsibility for it. Yeah, even stuff
he didn't do just because he was the mayor, he
he put himself in as accountable. All right, So should
we fast forward? Yes, the stage is set. We know

(20:13):
what happened in the seventies. We know the relationship between
this neighborhood with this group and this group with the
city and the cops, and so uh, they decide that
they are going to um extract every person from that house.
That was the plan, as we are going to remove
the move organization from the house on o Sage Avenue. Uh.

(20:36):
In this article says they didn't have a plan that's
not true. They had a plan that just was not
executed well and went really pear shaped really fast. And
then they didn't have a plan. But the original plan
was to h They had built the move organization had
built it this pretty fortified bunker on top of their building.
As far as homemade bunkers go, not bad, which gave

(20:57):
them a supreme tactical advantage. You know anything about war,
you know, higher ground is is always going to win
out if you're not always designed to castle or something.
You know, castle designers they know, or mongers. Uh. So
the idea was to create a diversion on the roof, uh,
in which time police officers or swat and everybody would

(21:20):
um would go inside and forcibly remove people by any
means necessary than mayor goods words. But the first the
first part of that was water cannons and tear gas.
And they were very surprised when these water cannons that
were just I think they shot like a thousand gallons
a second or some crazy amount of water just left

(21:43):
them on. Yes, two of them shoot like and they
fully expected to basically take most of this house down
like it was a brick row home. UM. But they
expected it to to take the non brick parts off,
including that that structure on top, that that lookout. Um.
And they were very very surprised when two things didn't happen,

(22:03):
when that structuring come down, despite the water cans being
directed at it for hours, and the people not coming out,
despite tear gas being shot into the house. And that is,
like you said earlier, when their plan went went to
the to the birds. Yeah, toilet, Sure went down the toilet,

(22:25):
and they said, well, what do we do now, Like
our whole plan doesn't work. I've got an idea. Let's
start shooting at the house instead. Yeah. So what they
didn't know this whole time was that they were all
hiding in a basement garage. So all of this water
raining down on the roof wasn't I don't probably wasn't
even getting to them, probably, or maybe it's not like, uh,

(22:45):
it's not like they were up to their necks in
water in the basement and like drowning or anything like that. No,
but they later said that the tear gas was everywhere. Um,
but apparently it wasn't potent enough. Maybe they used expired
stuff and we should step it back one step, chuck
before this raid actually started. They went house to house

(23:06):
to the neighbors and said, you guys, grab all your
clothes huge, we need you gone for twenty four hours
because we're about to do what you guys wanted us
to do for years. We're gonna do it, so you
need to get out here. They towed trucks from most
Age Avenue. They towed every car they had. The like,
the gas shut off, the electricity shut off. There was
a siege. Yeah, they basically tried to just vacate the

(23:28):
block and they did. Yeah, and they did it. I mean,
I think some people stayed when they shouldn't have. But
it's like with any evacuation. They got as many people
out of there as possible. They're like, you'll be back
in your house tomorrow. Okay. So, so the the whole block,
and like a couple of blocks, a couple of streets
on either side are cleared. The water has been um used,

(23:49):
it's not working, the the tear gas is not working.
So supposedly the first shots came from the house, but everybody,
all witnesses, cops, firefighters, news people say that the first
shots were automatic fire. It's been conclusively proven that no

(24:09):
one in the move house had an automatic weapon. So
if the first shots were automatic, then that means the
cops fired first. And that's what people seem to believe
is that the cops started this. Yeah, and a lot
of this documentary it's really compelling because it's footage from
the commission afterward and you get like the real deal testimony,

(24:30):
first person testimony from all the major players, including the
police chief what was his name, Gregory Sambor? Yeah, Sambor?
Who was He identified it as automatic, like his sworn testimony,
said it was automatic weapons. And they're like, well, how
do you know? And he's like, I know what an
automatic weapon sounds like, right, And they're like, well, what
move didn't have automatic weapons? He's like, oh, I don't

(24:52):
know about that. Yeah, He's like, I don't know how
to explain that. Then, but they fired first. He just
kind of stuck to his guns every single time. Yeah,
he was a piece of work of self. He was
definitely in the cut from the same cloth as uh Maririzzo,
I think. So. Yeah, So they decided to start shooting
at this point, because regardless of who shot first, it

(25:12):
becomes like Vietnam on the city block. All of a sudden,
and it's not like, I mean, they cleared it out.
But when you see this news footage, I mean there's
people everywhere watching their news cameras in and anchors everywhere
on the streets like, oh, like we should get behind
the car now because it's raining bullets everywhere. It's just

(25:33):
freaky to see this happening in like a city block
in the United States. Yeah, the cop eighties. The cops
later on in estimated that they fired about ten rounds.
They ran out of bullets. Yeah, they had to bring
him more because yeah, that this car pulls up there
like a car, a police car is just rushed into
the scene and it's like from a movie. The trunk
pops and it's just full of bullets, just for because

(25:56):
they ran out of bullets. Yeah, so they kept shooting
at this house. And here's the thing. Bear in mind,
they're shooting ten thousand rounds of ammunition at a house
occupied by three people, seven of which are children. Everyone knows.
Everyone knows that there were seven children in that house. Yeah,
it's not like the cops were unaware. Uh, everyone knew

(26:19):
that there were children in this house. It was part
of it. It was part of the concern of the
neighbors that there were children being raised in this house,
and the cops acted on the information from confidential informants
who fully informed them that there were children in this house.
So that's step one. They fired ten thousand rounds at
a house where they knew that there were seven children. Alright,
so nothing is changing though, they're still not bringing people

(26:42):
out of this house. I'll bet they were like, I
can't believe this, and the structure was still intact on top.
I'm surprised they didn't think they were dead. Yeah. I
would have thought at some point they would have been like, well,
I'm sure we probably killed everyone, let's just go in there.
Uh Yeah, I wonder, Yeah, I wonder, because if they
were all crowded, crowded down in the basement garage, they

(27:02):
couldn't have been firing back after a certain point in time. Yeah,
I'm not sure. I mean they said part of the
problem was, uh, the tear gas, so they couldn't send
cops in there because it was flooded with tear gas.
And then I think they said the um, well, no
that this this comes later, the steam, so put a
pin in the steam. So at some point someone on

(27:23):
the bomb squad apparently says to the police chief, or
it gets to the police chief, Hey, he was really
you know, the chief was really worried about that bunker
in that tactical advantage. So someone from the bomb squad said,
why don't we drop a bomb on the roof and
get rid of that bunker? And an officer named William
Klein suggested, and they said it, okay, let's do that.

(27:44):
Good idea. Klein, what do we think a helicopter and
a bomb. They're like, well, we've got both. So even
as late as the inquiry that they held, they characterized
it as a Tovex bomb, And to Vex is a
water based gelatinous at explosive um that that is used
I think in mining and demolition and stuff like that.

(28:06):
But it can be purchased. Yes. Yeah. It later came
out that in addition to the to vex, the the
bomb disposal guy made a bomb with C four plastic explosives,
which is not commercially available, which means that we'll see
later the Philadelphia Police Department should not have had this stuff. Yeah,

(28:27):
I mean we should just go ahead and say how
they got it? Why not? Well, I was trying to
save it for with a little flair for the dramatic,
but you go ahead. Well, uh, the FBI gave it
to him secretly. Yeah, the FBI had been giving um
little bits of C four here and there to police
departments apparently like the blow doors off of stuff to
train bomb sniffing dogs teach them how to use it.

(28:49):
But then the FBI use that excuse for a little while,
then later came out and said we actually like brought
them a bunch of C four, like thirty blocks of
C four in January, a few months before were this
this raid, the siege. But still during the time when
um the like move people were being negotiated with to

(29:11):
leave on their own. Yeah, because that was happening this
whole time. They would have community leaders on the bullhorn
trying to talk them into coming out. They did not
have a professional negotiator on the scene, which that's a
huge yet. Yeah, that they never meant for anyone to
come out. Yeah, but at any rate, they drop a
bomb a I think it was a they said, a

(29:33):
four pound bomb from a satchel with a forty five
second fuse. This is all on camera, like you literally
in this documentary see the helicopter flyover, drop the satchel
out of it. Yeah, I love that. You did a
running motion, you know in helicopters runs, and they flew
out of there and uh kaboom and West Philadelphia, a

(29:57):
bomb explodes on top of the building and a smallish
fire starts. There was there like five that they dropped
the bomb five ten, I think, and the smallest fire
took a couple of minutes for it to to become
a parent that it had caught fire. But supposedly there

(30:17):
was gasoline in the um what are we calling that
thing the bunker? The bunker? They're supposedly gasoline in the bunker.
But I really like they the police dropped the bomb
on a building that they knew that people were in,
seven of which were children, Okay, And supposedly the reason

(30:38):
that they did this was to to get rid of
that bunker. Like that bunker. The police chief did not
like that bunker standing still and wanted to get rid
of it. The bomb didn't do anything to the bunker.
That was a strong bunker. It was um. The timelines important.
So at is when they dropped the bomb at five uh,

(30:59):
someone asked the fire department if they should turn on
the you know, they've been deluging this thing with water
all day long until there's a fire and then they
turn it off, which was you know, it's not ironic
because it was very purposeful, but um, it definitely stings.
More so they said, uh, not to turn them on

(31:20):
by six o'clock. So this is thirty three minutes later, Um,
Mayor Good is watching this on TV in his office.
He phones it in and says, you know, let's let's
put this fire out now. He ordered the fire to
be put out. Yeah, thirty three minutes later. And this
is where it gets a little hinky because this was
given to police Chief Sambor, and under testimony, Sambor says

(31:46):
that he relayed that to the fire chief. He said,
he said that the fire chief was there. He did
not say he related to it. Well yeah, I mean
he got very dodgy with how he worded it. But
the fire chief Um basically on testimony, said that's what
he said, and he's like, I categorically denied that I
ever got in order to start those water cannons, or

(32:06):
that he was even aware that Good made that call
a phone call or called the order. So basically, the
fire chiefs said, the bucks stopped with Sambor, and Sambor
the police chief decided to let that fire burn, that's right,
because he thought, not defending him, but he thought the
fire would then take down the bunker and remove that advantage.
Other people contend, and they asked him in the deposition

(32:30):
or in the in the hearing, no, you've kind of
really wanted to use the fire as a weapon. He
got real salty you about that. He did. He said
a fire can't be a weapon. Basically said about flamethrowers.
He goes, I hadn't thought about flamethrowers. But still, all right,
so this is six thirty flames are uh, it is

(32:53):
clearly out of hand. They waited way too long. That
was the thing that got me was it was obvious
from what Sandbar was saying, if the documentary is accurate,
from what Sandbar was saying, that when he was saying
that we need to let the bunker burn, still by
this time, the entire top floor was a conflagration. Yeah,

(33:14):
I mean it's on the news. So so that whole
thing doesn't hold water at all, and it would lend
support to the idea that he was using it as
a weapon to burn the people out. I'm sure he was.
I'm sure he thought tear guests didn't work. Maybe this
fire will work and drive these people out of there.
All right, should we take a break or should we wait?

(33:34):
Let's take a break. Okay, we'll take a break and
we'll tell you what happens next. Okay, Chuck, So the

(34:10):
for for a little bit. The fire department UM sprays
some of the houses next to the move house, but
doesn't put the fire out or spray the fire on
the move house. So when the abandoned houses, they're spraying
down to try to contain the fire in the house.
The one house in this whole square block area where

(34:32):
they know people are, including seven children, they didn't spray.
Later on, they will defend this by saying, well, in
that siege, move Um fired on the firefighters and apparently
shot and injured several firefighters, so that we were worried
for the firefighters to be picked off fighting this fire

(34:54):
in this siege as well. Ramona Africa, who would be
the one adult from move to survive this siege? I
would say, well, like you said earlier, they had these
they weren't scared to to hit us with these water cannons.
The whole time there wasn't a fire, but then there
is a fire. Now they're scared. We're going to pick
them off. Doesn't make any sense. It's just be yes. Yeah.

(35:14):
And also I'm glad you brought that up because I
said to put a pin in the steam. This is
when the steam happened, because they're blowing water on this
fire now and it's creating all the steam that they said.
Didn't allow anyone to move in as well, because they
couldn't see anything. There was no visibility. Okay, So despite
spraying down the houses around this fire, it got out
of hand really fast, and it spread very fast, and

(35:38):
it moved very quickly, not just from the move house, um,
but onto the neighboring houses and then beyond. And even
these are fairly narrow streets that this neighborhood was built on,
and it jumped the street fairly quickly. Yeah. It wasn't
contained or deemed under control until PM. So it's like
more than six hours after it started. Yeah, that this

(35:58):
whole city block has just burnt to the ground. It
ended up being like a six alarmed fire, which depending
on the city, is a hundred hundred and twenty firefighters, chiefs,
ladder trucks. It's a big old fire. Yeah. So uh,
you mentioned the nineteen seventy eight siege where um the
officer was shot and killed and where the beating of

(36:19):
Delbert Africa went down. Important to remember that because two
of the officers there were involved in the beat down
of Delbert Africa were also on the scene today. And
they make a big point in this commission like did
you think about sending these guys in there might not
be a good idea and they may have revenge on
their minds uh, And I can't remember what the answer was.

(36:41):
He was kind of like he said, no, I didn't
think of that, yeah, or yes I did, whatever it was.
He was not like, yeah, that was not a good idea, right,
He stood by whatever it was. Right. So this kind
of sets up um another story in tandem that's going
on right now, which is at a certain point during
this massive fire, Yeah, they tried to get out from

(37:05):
the basement. The move people tried to get out. They
tried to escape, that's right, They tried to get out
the back door. There's this um. At this points the
cops had moved into the alleyway there was no camera access.
You couldn't see what happened. But from the testimony that
I can't even hardly get through the testimony of that kid.
You know, they deposed him. He wasn't in front of

(37:25):
the commission, but Africa. Yeah, but Bertie Africa was like
what he looked like ten or eleven years old when
they deposed him. Yeah, but he was actually like thirteen,
was he? Um? But this kid is retelling the story, Uh,
seems incredibly credible and believable to me, Like, I fully
believe that he was telling the truth Over the two
cops who are supposed who may or may not who

(37:46):
may have actually fired on the people trying to escape
the house of the two. It's way easier to believe
that kids testimony than these guys who were the ones
who beat Delbert Africa in. Yeah, so that's what happened.
They tried to leave. There was a kid named rad
Africa that was I think like thirteen or fourteen, and
he was carrying out a baby and he was one

(38:09):
of the first ones out and he goes back into
the house and there's that part of the documentary where
the the priest is talking to the officers and He's like,
because officers are saying, all we were saying was come
out with your hands up, right, we didn't fire on anything,
We didn't fire. We come out with your hands up.
And this priest is like, I'm trying to think of

(38:29):
what would make a kid holding a baby go back
into a building engulfed in flames. And the cops are like,
I don't know, Yeah, you can't really put yourself in
a move person's feet, right, you can't really identify with them,
and that that minister or whatever said, actually I was
friends with a lot of these people. I knew them
on a human level. Um. The other thing that really

(38:50):
kind of damns the two cops who beat Delbert Africa's
testimony UM is that there there was reports from a
lot of witnesses, including like fire department people from of
um gunfire in this alley around this time. So the
whole thing kind of adds up if you take those

(39:11):
testament that the reports of witnesses that there was gunfire
in the back alley with Birdie Africa and Ramona Africa's
testimony that around that same time people had tried to escape,
and then the testimony of the cops themselves that the
people had run back in the house. It sounds a
lot like a reasonable person would conclude that the cops

(39:36):
who had beaten Delbert Africa shot at the people from
move In who tried to escape the fire and force
them back into the burning house. That's certainly what it
sounds like. Uh. They the cops said that the kid
had or he said he was a man, he was
a kid, had a rifle that he pointed at them,

(39:57):
and like, I know what a rifle looks like, because
the the kid who survived, um Bertie said he had
a monkey wrench in his hand that he used to
get the window open. And he came out with a
monkey wrench in that baby. And the cop was like,
I can tell the differ between a rifle and a
monkey wrench. Yeah. And if you're sitting here like, hey,
you lay off the cops, just watch this documentary and
then listen to this part over again, because it's really

(40:20):
it's a really great documentary. It does a really good
job of like laying everything out. But part of the
part of the um, I guess the goodness of this
documentary is that it's all archival and it lets the
people speak for themselves. Yeah, it's just you basically kind
of watch what happened and listen to what people said
about it, you know, including the people. And it's obviously

(40:42):
I mean it's edited. It's not just like here's this
this inquiry, here's my documentary. But I mean that it
lets it pay out enough that you get a really
good clear picture of of what happened in the testimony
that followed. So, I mean, that's kind of the end
of that story. Um, as it happened. You know, these
Ramona and Bertie were the only two to make it

(41:03):
out of that house alive. And that hero I mentioned earlier,
cop Man. I wish I could remember his name. I
got his name, he um. He he could not stop
himself from running to Bertie to help him. Yeah, James Officer,
James burg Hire. So burg Hire um ran to them,

(41:24):
despite his some of his colleagues saying, don't I think
it's a trap. You're gonna be killed? He said, I can't.
I can't. Like I see this kid right there, and
I'm going to go rescue him. He thought of his kids,
he said he did, and he was. They even say
like in the inquiry, like if there's if there's any
like silver, silver lining or shining moment to this whole

(41:44):
horrible thing. It's what you did. Um. And he got
kind of rousted out of the police department within a
year or two. Oh yeah, his his own uh police
brethren turned on him. They wrote racial epithets on his
locker because he saved this kid. Uh was diagnosed with
PTSD and left the forest two years later. Uh. And

(42:05):
there's a great article I found that I read the
first third of right before we had to record that
of him an interview with him. I guess like five
or six years ago that I can't wait to go
read and finish up. So let's finish up. Okay. So,
so the so Bertie and Ramona were the only two
move members who survived. The other eleven died, including six

(42:27):
children in this house that was set on fire. And
the fire was set off by a bomb that the
Philadelphia Police Department dropped on the house. So obviously Philadelphia
is gonna cough up some money for this. Uh yeah,
that was Um. There were settlements UM. The parents of
the dead children, UM settled for twenty five million dollars total. UM.

(42:51):
Michael Ward young Bertie, he became Michael Warred. He changed
his name. He got one point seven million dollars, Ramona
Africa got half a million dollars, and the families of
John Africa and his nephew they couldn't reach a settlement,
so they were awarded one million by a jury. And
then here's the kicker. Police Chief Sambor and fire Chief
Richmond were forced to pay a dollar a week for

(43:13):
eleven years to Ramona Africa to to keep in mind,
five seventy two dollars, which is a but it's a
civil I mean that's a civil punishment basically saying we
think you're like, you might not be criminally responsible, but
in the civil suit we are saying it's basically like
how um symbolic payment or whatever. Yeah, it's like how
the court, the civil court ruled against o j even

(43:37):
though he had been found not um guilty of murder
in the criminal the civil courts still said, no, you're
you're responsible. We believe so we're going to get you
in this way. They did the same thing. And this
was despite the fact that Ramona Africa did seven years.
Like they didn't say, hey, we're really sorry we burned
this house. Here's some money. They said, hey, um, you're

(44:00):
under arrest for um inciting riot and UM conspiracy of
something or other and she did seven years. She didn't
get out early because the parole board said you have
to denounce move um and she refused to denounce move
and she did her full seven years, although now she
is not affiliated with MOVE any longer. As far as

(44:21):
I know, yeah, um. As far as the original MOVE nine,
who are the ones in prison for the killing of
the police officer. Two of them died in prison. I
think two are still in prison. The rest, including just
in February. Uh, February twelve, Eddie Africa was paroled. Um.
Delbert and Chuck Africa are still behind bars. I think

(44:46):
the only two still behind bars. Uh. And as far
as Michael Ward a k A young Birdie Africa, he
very sadly died in two thousand thirteen in a hot
tub cruise ship drowning due to you uh, intoxication. Yeah.
They The Brevard County, Florida Medical Examiner ruled at an

(45:07):
accidental death from drowning in the hot tub from just
being drunk. I guess what a weird way to go
after all that weird life. Yeah, he um. It's weird
because during the deposition. He was there with his father,
and I'm like, where was his dad? His dad was
looking for him while his dad was out of the
country in the military, while he was living in Philadelphia. Right,

(45:28):
but he had moved to um, suburban Philadelphia. Yeah, his
dad did and had been looking for Michael and had
no idea he was, you know, thirty minutes away in Philly. Yeah.
So he lived the rest of his life with his dad,
and that's who he referenced earlier when he was like,
you know, the stuff that went on there, I'll only
tell my father super super tragic. And it's one of

(45:50):
these things I think like we should do a little
triumvirate of this in Ruby Ridge and Waco, maybe like
three times where there was a potentially problematic organization in
the United States government just decided to firebombit. Yeah. These
are so sticky because you want to be like, oh,
these people are the victims and the you know, the
government really was a villain in this one. But you're like,

(46:13):
it's never that complex, and these stories really teach you
that that's always things are much more textured than than
than that. They're much more nuanced than that black and white. Um.
But even still still don't drop you don't drop a
bomb and burn people to death. Yeah, the city as
far as that block went, um, they paid eleven million dollars,

(46:36):
which was by all accounts a very inside deal with
some developer who put up a bunch of houses that
were um condemned in two thousand due to shoddy construction.
So somebody got rich again trying to build these things,
did a terrible job. Um, twenty four families stayed. They
offered repairs and buyouts, uh, and apparently most people took

(46:59):
the buyouts. And if you do like the little Google Earth,
the one oh sage, it's uh still row houses. And
on either side of that it looks like people might
be living there. But that building has like you know,
apply wood up in the windows, because I heard like
starting in about two thousand fifteen they brought in a

(47:20):
good developer and started to redevelop it and then starting
to come back. Well it's interesting that one address though
is uh is boarded up, So I don't know if
like no one wants to live there, or it could
be an older Google image. Yeah those are usually newer, right,
I wonder why, I mean, it could be older than
two fifteen although I looked at my house the other

(47:41):
day and it was it was the old house. The
old house. Yeah, and I was kind of like, oh,
that's cute. It looked prettier than I thought. No, you
got a good house. I gotta see your new version. Yeah,
you should fancy version. I'm just waiting for an invite.
Come on over. Thanks, Um, I can't Uh. If you
want to know more about the move bombing police, please,

(48:03):
we both beseech you go watch Let the Fire Burn
on Amazon Prime, on the internet, wherever you can see it.
Just see it. It's really really good. And and we
should point out to that no one involved on the
on the cops, in the political side suffered any punishments.
There was that inquiry and no one was found guilty

(48:25):
of any wrongdoing except although this is this will put
a really good button on this multi racial panel inquiry
panel that held these hearings to a person with one
dissenter said that we conclude had this not been a
black working class neighborhood and instead of white working class neighborhood,

(48:47):
the police never would have dropped that bomb. Of course
they wouldn't have. Yeah, okay, uh, it's time for listening now.
Who was the lone dissenter I didn't see. It's got
to be a guy with the glasses. It's always that guy. Uh,
what am I gonna call this? Perfect pitch follow up?
Hey guys. Back in two thousand nine, my band was

(49:09):
recording an album and there was one song that ends
with us all singing and holding out a single note.
The next song starts with us singing that same note.
You see what they did adding drums. Then the songs
are edited together to have them flow into each other
with no gap. Josh, he is very interesting because he's
a musician. Jerry just be like, I'm meeting me, So

(49:30):
what did you guys say? We had finished recording that
first one, and I can tell by the look on
Josh's face he's like that old trick. Uh packed our
instruments away. Then we're about to start the next one.
We realize we need to hear the first note so
we could sing in the right pitch instead of loading
up the previous song. Our pianist said, I have perfect
pitch and built it out the note, which we all

(49:50):
who don't have perfect pitch, trusted him to be right
and started recording from there. Litterally, we know he doesn't
have perfect pitch, but it's close. Uh. When we edited
the songs together and played them through, the notes were
supposed to match were off by about a half step.
Now it sounds like a Jerry very dissonant, totally wrong.
Um oh, I just realized Jerry is going to hear

(50:10):
this one. She edited this episode's right. Just put a
Wilhelm screaming there, Jerry, We'll be all right. We are
already out of the studio at that point, so we
ended up just releasing it and claiming the dissonance was intentional,
but we never let them off the hook and with
the old oh yeah, you got perfect pitch, do you?
Thanks so much for all the hard work, hard work.
Guys have learned so much, been endlessly entertained for years. Signed,

(50:31):
spanked and sent. That is from Kenny. Thank you Kenny.
We appreciate that. That was a pretty great email. I
mean literally, L O L. I can only assume it's
Kenny Rogers. I also want to say this, we give
Jerry a hard time around here. It's stuff you should know.
Only she's not here. Imagine Actually that's not true. We
do well, she's sitting right there too. I can't imagine

(50:52):
Stuff you Should Know without her. We love our Jerry
and she is perfect exactly the way she is. Called
that a nice save. All right? Uh well, if you
want to get in touch with this, you can go
on to stuff you Should Know dot com and check
out our social links, and you can also send us
an email to stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.

(51:15):
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