Tensions rising between Philly police, radical group
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – For the third time since the 1970s, members of MOVE – the radical group whose 1985 clash with police left 11 people dead and 61 homes burned to the ground – began boarding up their windows last week for another possible showdown. This time, the source of tension is a child-custody dispute. Police and city officials have tried to defuse tensions, giving assurances that they do not plan to intervene in the custody case.
But the buildup and the prospect of another armed clash have baffled police, who thought that MOVE’s members had mellowed and even gone middle-class.
Police Capt. Bill Fisher, head of the civil affairs division, said he has been to the house “maybe 50 times” to visit with MOVE leaders in recent years and thought he had established a good relationship.
“During the period I have dealt with them, I have never seen any violence or vandalism. I’ve never seen a knife. I’ve never seen a gun. I was totally shocked when they went to this mode,” Fisher said. “In the five years I’ve been here, it’s a kinder, gentler MOVE, but here I am standing outside a boarded-up house.”
At issue is a judge’s order that MOVE member Alberta Africa turn over 6-year-old son Zachary for weekend visits with his father – something she has refused to do. While Zachary and his mother have spent time at the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia, they live in Cherry Hill, N.J.
Nevertheless, MOVE spokes-woman Ramona Africa, who was burned in the 1985 fire and went to prison for seven years, said MOVE members fear police will use the custody dispute “as an excuse to exterminate MOVE.” She said they have boarded up the home in self-defense.
Ramona Africa was evasive when asked whether MOVE is armed.
“Look, all I can tell you is that we are not turning over this child. Now, whatever this government decides to do from there, you will have to talk with them about it,” she said Monday. “Did you think they would have dared to drop a bomb in 1985? No. You would never have believed it. And yet it happened. It could happen again.”
MOVE got its start in the early 1970s. The mostly black group shunned modern conveniences, preached equal rights for animals and rejected government authority. Members dropped their surnames and took the last name Africa. The name MOVE does not stand for anything in particular.
Years of tension between MOVE, neighbors and city inspectors exploded in 1978, when police stormed their fortified West Philadelphia commune and were met with gunfire. One policeman was killed. Nine MOVE members went to prison for murder.
By 1981, MOVE was back at a new headquarters in a West Philadelphia rowhouse. Neighbors complained the group was allowing garbage to pile up and shouting profanities through a loudspeaker late into the night.
On May 13, 1985, police moved in to arrest several MOVE members. After a daylong siege, the city dropped a bomb from a helicopter to try to dislodge a rooftop bunker, touching off a fire that destroyed an entire block and killed six adult MOVE members and five children.
The episode stunned and embarrassed the city, which paid millions in damages to MOVE members and fire victims.
In the decades since, MOVE re-emerged, but with a less radical agenda.
Today the group is most closely identified with its support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted cop killer whose writings from Pennsylvania’s death-row have made him an international cause celebre. MOVE has also demanded the release of members still jailed for the 1978 killing.
Some of its members live in the suburbs, and many of them hold down full-time jobs.
The group’s efforts since the bombing have been nonviolent. While its protests are known for their profanity-laced tirades against “the police state,” organizers frequently work behind the scenes with police to ensure that the demonstrations are orderly.
The group’s base is a well-kept West Philadelphia stone house near the University of Pennsylvania campus, where other residents say the few families who live in the home have been excellent neighbors.
So city officials were stunned last week when, after years of quiet, MOVE members announced they were preparing for a new showdown. After the boards went up last week, Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson spoke privately with MOVE leaders to assure them that the city had no plans to intervene in the custody matter. Mayor John Street said at a news conference that the issue was “a New Jersey problem.”
Authorities hope the situation will defuse itself, but they aren’t certain that will happen, based on what happened in 1978 and 1985.
Among those in the police department who have had long experience with MOVE, “the one consensus is, that when they do these things, they never de-escalate,” Fisher said. “They move at a glacier-like pace, but things just keep building.”
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On the Net:
MOVE: http://www.moveorg.net