MOVE supporters gather in Cobbs Creek, 40 years after deadly bombing by Philly police at the organization’s HQ

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Forty years after Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the MOVE Organization’s home in Cobbs Creek, members and family members gathered Tuesday to reflect on the tragedy.

The 1985 MOVE bombing claimed the lives of 11 people, including five children. Sixty-one homes were decimated in the resulting fire when Philadelphia became the first major city to drop a bomb on itself.

Persistent rainfall during the event set the mood for the solemn occasion. YahNé Ndgo said the moment to reflect needed to happen, “rain or shine.”

“This moment deserves our reverence; it deserves community coming together to hold the community members who were taken so violently from us,” Ndgo said.

The dropping of the bomb and the campaign to buy back the house

Tensions flared between the MOVE Organization, the city and its police force after a 1978 standoff at MOVE’s previous headquarters in Powelton Village, which resulted in the shooting death of Officer James Ramp. Nine MOVE members were convicted for their involvement in that incident. The MOVE 9 have always insisted they are innocent.

Things came to a head on May 13, 1985, when 500 police officers were present at the home at 6221 Osage Ave., equipped with “flak jackets, tear gas, SWAT gear, .50- and .60-caliber machine guns, and an anti-tank machine gun,” according to the MOVE investigation report. The fire department flooded the home to force the occupants to leave.

At some point during the 12-hour standoff, several shots were fired at officers from inside the home. Police returned fire, sending 10,000 rounds into the home. At 5 p.m., then-Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode approved the use of explosives to destroy the bunker on top of the house. The fire that followed was left to burn by the fire department. No one was ever criminally charged for the bombing.

The home in which MOVE set up their headquarters was seized by the city after the bombing through eminent domain, according to family member Mike Africa Jr.

“The only way that accountability will ever come in any situation dealing with this city and this system in general is for the people to demand it and fight for it until we achieve it,” he said, referencing the Reclaim Osage campaign, which aims to raise funds to buy back the MOVE home that was destroyed. “In many cases, we just have to do it ourselves. I’m not expecting, depending on the city, to give us anything.”

“The city don’t care about us,” Africa Jr. said. “If they cared about us, they wouldn’t have dropped that bomb. If they cared about us, they wouldn’t have stole[n] the remains. If they cared about us, they wouldn’t have tried to incinerate the remains without turning them over to their families. If they cared about us, we wouldn’t be standing here right now trying to get justice.”

The MOVE Commission determined city leaders, including Goode, were “grossly negligent” and called the plan to drop the bomb “reckless, ill-conceived, and hastily approved.”

A recent WHYY News exclusive interview also revealed a private helicopter pilot hired by the city advised officials not to drop the bomb on the bunker, saying it was “no threat.”

The names of the child victims are Tomaso “Boo” Levino, Delisha Orr, Zanetta Dotson, Phil Phillips and Katricia “Tree” Dotson. The adults were Theresa Brooks, Frank James, John Africa, Raymond Foster, James Conrad Hampton and Rhonda Ward.