As death row journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal writes in his essay "When Massacre Is
No Crime" MOVE is currently seeking murder charges against police
and city officials for the deaths of eleven of their family members on
May 13, 1985. The remainder of this article, organized into six
sections, is a compilation of testimony and evidence that makes a
compelling case for why murder charges are needed: The Legalization of
Murder; The Morning Assault; Mayor Goode Refuses to Negotiate; Dropping
the C-4 Bomb; "Fire As a Tactical Weapon"; Police Shoot at Fleeing
Occupants.
The Legalization of Murder
As detailed in the article that accompanied the first part of our video-interview with Ramona Africa, the Philadelphia police had launched a previous military-style assault on MOVE's home in the PoweltonVillage neighborhood of West Philadelphia on August 8, 1978. During the assault, Officer James Ramp was shot and killed by what many believe was actually police gunfire because MOVE was below ground in the basement and the bullet in Officer Ramp did not enter at an upward trajectory like a bullet from the basement would have. Furthermore, Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington Jr. has reported that several different sources of his within the Philadelphia Police Department told him that Ramp had in fact been shot by police gunfire.
However, nine MOVE members (known today as the "MOVE 9") arrested in the house that day were jointly convicted of third-degree murder and conspiracy for the shooting death of Officer Ramp and sentenced to 30-100 years. In the years following the imprisonment of the MOVE 9, the headquarters for MOVE shifted to
6221 Osage Avenue, in a middle-class black neighborhood, where MOVE continually demanded an official investigation into the 1978 confrontation and the convictions of the MOVE 9.Many of MOVE's neighbors
complained to the city government about MOVE's use of a loudspeaker to
air their own grievances with the city, which mostly centered around the
MOVE 9 convictions. Along with sanitation complaints, the neighbors
also expressed concern about a bunker built above the house, which MOVE
said they had built to defend themselves from another military-style
police assault on their home similar to Aug. 8, 1978.
Officially in response to
these sanitation and noise complaints from neighbors, Philadelphia
mayor, Wilson Goode, held a meeting with Managing Director Leo A. Brooks
and Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor, District Attorney Ed Rendell
(now the Governor of Pennsylvania), and others, where he first
authorized Sambor to prepare and execute a tactical plan under the
supervision of Brooks, allegedly to solve the neighborhood dispute.
On May 11, Judge Lynn
Abraham approved DA Rendell's requested emergency arrest and search
warrants for four MOVE members on charges of disorderly conduct and
terroristic threats, based upon statements MOVE made on their
loudspeaker two weeks earlier, where, among other things, they stated
that they'd defend themselves from a police attack.
Today, Ramona Africa
challenges the legitimacy of these May 11 emergency warrants by citing
the fact that during Ramona's later trial, all charges listed on her
arrest warrant were dismissed by the judge. Ramona says that "this means
that they had no valid reason to even be out there, but they did not
dismiss the charges placed on me as a result of what happened after they
came out."
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