hn-classics/_stories/1985/8200387.md

---
created_at: '2014-08-19T23:22:55.000Z'
title: Police Drop Bomb on Radicals' Home in Philadelphia (1985)
url: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/us/police-drop-bomb-on-radicals-home-in-philadelphia.html
author: learc83
points: 50
story_text: ''
comment_text: 
num_comments: 60
story_id: 
story_title: 
story_url: 
parent_id: 
created_at_i: 1408490575
_tags:
- story
- author_learc83
- story_8200387
objectID: '8200387'

---
**PHILADELPHIA, May 13—** A state police helicopter this evening dropped
a bomb on a house occupied by an armed group after a 24-hour siege
involving gun battles.

A 90-minute shootout this morning came after a week of growing tension
between the city and the group, known as Move. Residents in the western
Philadelphia neighborhood had complained about the group for years. The
only known survivors from within the house were a woman and a child.

The fire spread to 50 to 60 other houses in the neighborhood, said the
Fire Commissioner, William Richmond. He declared the fire under control
about 11:40 P.M.

Aimed to Hit Bunker

The Police Commissioner, Gregore Sambor, said tonight that it was was
his decision to drop the charge, a square package of explosives designed
to destroy a bunker atop the house and drop it through to the second
floor. He said the charge succeeded in eliminating the threat from the
roof, but touched off the fire.

Steve Harmon, a resident of the area, said: ''Drop a bomb on a
residential area? I never in my life heard of that. It's like Vietnam.''

The Move group, which says it disdains modern technology and materialism
and the establishment, was involved in a confrontation with the police
in August 1978. One police officer was killed in that shootout. Nine
members of the group were convicted on murder charges and are in prison.
The group has been demanding their release.

The Police Commissioner said that the authorities did not know whether
there were any bodies in the house.

One Officer Injured

Commissioner Sambor said that one police officer whom he did not
identify was bruised in the back by gunfire. ''And the only thing that
saved him was his body armor,'' the Comissioner said.

The police said earlier that at least three officers had suffered slight
injuries, including smoke inhalation, exhaustion and hyperventilation.

No other casualties were reported, but the whereabouts of some occupants
of the house were unknown.

Mayor W. Wilson Goode said this evening that a 9-year-old left the
building with a woman, identified as Ramona Africa, shortly after the
fire began. The child, who was taken to a hospital, told the police
there were four or five adults and four or five children in the house
when the bomb was dropped, the Mayor said at a City Hall news
conference. The child was not identified, but the police said the woman
was in custody.

Leo Brooks, the City Managing Director, said tonight at the scene that
one of the first things the authorities wanted to do Tuesday was to
search the charred area.

A Fire Department officer, who requested anonymity, said the authorities
did not know where the other children were.

Mayor 'Saddened' by Fire

The Mayor said that three armed adults had been in an alley behind the
house, where they were firing at the police. He said there were no known
deaths and that he was heartened by that, but he was ''saddened'' by
reports that many homes had been destroyed by the blaze spreading from
the house that was bombed.

A Fire Department officer at the scene this evening had said houses
burned on both sides of the street in the 6200 block of Osage Avenue,
where the Move headquarters was situated, and houses in the block behind
it on Pine Street.

The Mayor, when asked why the bomb was dropped, said, ''It was an
attempt to remove the bunker,'' the structure on the roof of the house.

He repeatedly took responsibility for the outcome, although he said he
had given his department heads complete freedom to decide on the tactics
they thought best. ''As Mayor of this city I accept full and total
responsibility,'' Mr. Goode said. ''There was no way to avoid it. No way
to extract ourselves from that situation except by armed
confrontation.''

Arrived With Warrants

Mr. Brooks, the City Managing Director, said tonight that the police
arrived at the house this morning with arrest warrants for four
individuals and asked them to come out of the house. He said the police
had promised them there would be no firing.

Commissioner Sambor, according to Mr. Brooks, gave them 15 minutes to
come out. They refused, Mr. Brooks said, and responded with ''vitriolic
talk'' over a loudspeaker and then started firing.

''We took a significant number of rounds in our positions,'' said Mr.
Brooks.

In the siege this morning, Commissioner Sambor said, the police started
returning the fire, with frequent lulls. He said the Move people refused
all overtures of family, friends and clergy to mediate and to attempt to
talk them into coming out. ''At no time did the police fire in an
offensive posture,'' he said. He said the bunker on the roof had wooden
beams and steel plates, and that it would not budget despite the
authorities' use of water cannon.

Commissioner Sambor said the bomb was dropped to flush out people who
were firing at the police. ''If you were in a firefight and the
opposition held the higher ground,'' he said, ''what would you do?''

Fire Starts to Spread

Fire engulfed the house hit by the bomb and spread to neighboring row
houses, but firefighters delayed attempts to battle the blaze for at
least an hour out of fear that they would become targets of any
surviving members of the heavily armed group.

''There is no question in my mind that from the time the fire started
until this time there was a real danger'' for the firefighters, the
Mayor said at the news conference.

Mr. Brooks said that four people came out of the back of the Move house
during the blaze. Two of them were the woman and the child. He said they
were with another woman and a man.

The man fired at the police, Mr. Brooks said. He said the police did not
return the fire, and the man and the woman disappeared back into the
smoke.

Commissioner Sambor said earlier that the police were looking for three
armed men who might be in alleys or tunnels dug from under the house.