POLICE DROP BOMB ON RADICALS' HOME IN PHILADELPHIA - NYTimes.com

Search All NYTimes.com

POLICE DROP BOMB ON RADICALS' HOME IN PHILADELPHIA

By WILLIAM K. STEVENS, Special to the New York Times

Published: May 14, 1985

**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.