15: Who gave the Philly Police a friggin’ BOMB?!: The 1985 MOVE Bombing
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Hi friends, how are you? I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to the Dark History Library. That's right, baby. This is a safe space for all the curious cats out there who think like, hey, is history really as boring as it seemed in school?

Oh nay, nay, it is not. This is where we can learn all types of mysterious, dark, and dramatic stories that our teachers never taught us. No, they did not. So, as I do with every Dark History intro, I like to over-explain how I got to the story we are talking about today. I do this because sometimes these stories are just really dark, and honestly, I just don't want you to judge me. Like, you know, Bailey, how did you get, how did you even find this story? So let me tell you how I found today's story.

So, I used to burn a bunch of CDs and, you know, I think a lot of us did. And I would play all the greatest hits in my car. Fantastic. Well, I found a bunch of them and had the best drive the other day because I was just putting CD after CD after CD in, right? Well, one of them ends up getting stuck in the CD player. Fine. It happens. Whatever. But on it, it had one of the greatest songs by Ludacris on it. And you may remember this bop. It went something like this.

Move, bitch. Get out of the way. Get out of the way, bitch. Get out of the way. Move, bitch. You know, great song. Super great. So I'm laying in bed and I have this song stuck in my noggin. And I'm like, you know what? First of all, where are the rest of the lyrics? You know?

So I got to Google it and I Google MOVE, all caps, no breaks, LYRICS. And because the Google algorithm knows me so well, it's like, "Hey, did you mean MOVE bombings?" And I'm like, "You know what, Google? No.

But I'm very interested. You know, like, what is this MOVE bombing? I've never heard of this. So I click. And I realize that there was a bombing that took place in the middle of the suburbs of Philadelphia. And the weird part is, nobody ever really talks about it. Like, it's really bizarre. Literally, a whole block was bombed. And I'm not even kidding when I say, for no reason other than...

I don't even know. I don't even know. So thanks Google. You're always ruining my day. Anyways, so let me share with you what was uncovered about the move bombing. No, just kidding. Okay. Let me open up the book to page. This page looks good. Great. Move bombing. Let's get to it. So let's just jump right into this thing called the move bombing. What the frick?

I don't know. I can't cuss just yet because like daddy YouTube gets mad when I cuss super early. So anyways, okay, the story is pretty messed up. So let's start with what MOVE itself is. So MOVE is actually a group that combined the ideas of black liberation with environmentalism. It was the 70s. So environmentalism was kind of like this new concept where they're like, hey,

"The Earth is cool, let's be nice to it," you know? But also, the Civil Rights Movement was happening, so there were a lot of groups popping up at the time that were focused on black empowerment. And MOVE combined the ideas of both of these movements. So it went much deeper than that. MOVE considered itself a religion. They believed fully that their leader was a divine figure and that his teachings were basically their Bible.

So who is this mysterious leader, you ask? Well, MOVE was founded in 1972 by a man named John Africa. Okay, so actually, everybody that was a part of MOVE had the last name Africa.

That was intentional. They all considered themselves family, and they chose that name as a tribute to the idea that Africa is where all life began. John Africa was actually born with a different name, which I'm not going to use that because it's rude, and he specifically asked us to call him John Africa. So we're going to keep it like that and not be disrespectful. Thank you so much. But he had a pretty normal childhood. He was never really that good at school, and he would end up dropping out at the age of 16.

When he was 18 years old, he joined the military and went to fight in the Korean War where he says he saw all kinds of messed up stuff. This is probably where he got the idea to try and live a life of peace no matter what because this violent business was just not for him. When he came back to the States, he settled down, he got married, and eventually moved to a little co-op community where they kind of share everything and like pooled their resources to buy stuff. I

I guess this is like a pretty common thing around the 60s and 70s for people to create these little mini societies that share their money and food and stuff and just support each other in that way. And John Africa and his family were super into it. They loved it. Great. Well, John Africa would start to get into activism when his neighborhood was being bulldozed to make room for university housing because they lived kind of close to the University of Pennsylvania. Yeah.

And he was like super against it and he would protest it and start forming a bit of a following around his protests and his speeches. Over the next couple of years, he would really start to build up his following and get a reputation as an eccentric character of the neighborhood.

Then around 1972, a friend would help him write down his ideas into a book called The Guidelines that had all of his teachings and ideas about corruption, veganism, racism, and just how to be an individual in a society that's becoming more technology-based. Honestly, sounds very Unabomber of him. Do you remember the Unabomber story? Same shit, different story, but not really.

Anyways, this led to him getting even more followers and eventually they would all move into a house and use the guidelines that John Africa wrote as their rule book for life and call themselves MOVE. So you're probably thinking, okay, what is MOVE? It's all caps, by the way, so that's what I'm kind of like yelling. MOVE even stand for. You're probably thinking, well, it's like an acronym, right? Yeah, MOVE. Move over, vehicles. You know?

Yeah. Anyways, it doesn't stand for that. It actually just means move. Like move, get out the way. So it kind of ties back to that Ludacris song, right? Not really, but like, kind of. Maybe that's why Google linked it together. Oh, sorry. Anyway, so it stands for nothing. It's just move. We're coming through because you're fucking up the earth and like, we're all charged up on granola and we're going to change the world. That's what it stands for. So,

Move. Great. We love them. They're trying to save the world. We like that. So what Move would do was have non-violent demonstrations. Great. And since they were super into the environment, they were also really, really into animal rights. They were so into animal rights that each of their houses would have as many as 60 pets. Oh yeah. Like that's a lot of pets. I'm sure the house smells very good. I hope they had wood flooring.

but it was like the 70s, so they probably didn't. But at this point, it's pretty much not even pets. It's just like a glorified cat lady.

Sorry, cat ladies out there. I love you. But anyway, a lot of their protests were at zoos or pet stores as well as political rallies. It was all nonviolent and they were anti-technology, anti-government, and anti-corporation. But most importantly, they believed big time in peace. Like peace, not a pe- peace. Peace, you get it. Everything America gets off on, they were against.

So, John Africa believed that people shouldn't just live within the system, but also they must fight the system.

And to him, the system was pollution, homelessness, drug addiction, racism, crime, war, basically everything bad that is part of the system created by the white people in power. And John Africa wanted MOVE to live outside of that system. They didn't wanna partake in like the normal world. They wanted to sustain their own way of life where they didn't have to follow the laws of the country.

and we know how America feels about a revolution. Well, do we? They don't like it, if you don't know. Unless it's the whites dumping tea into a harbor. I guess it's not very cool. I actually want to mention a couple things about these guidelines that they use so often because it helps understand why shit went so south later on. I can cuss now because we're far enough into the episode that YouTube, daddy YouTube is okay with it.

He like went to bed already. Anyway, the first is a belief that they had towards self-defense. John Africa felt that it's everyone's right to defend themselves. And if anyone comes onto their territory, you have the right to kill them. Which honestly, a lot of American laws already support this. John Africa put it like this. If you walk into a bear's cave and the bear rips your face off and eats your arms, like little Twinkies or something, whose fault is that?

Now don't say the bear. Don't say the bear. You walked in there. He's the bear. You're the bear. They're the Twinkie arms. You get it. Okay, the other thing that John Africa believed was that just because something is legal doesn't make it right. His point is that slavery was legal, killing Native Americans to steal their land was done legally.

Kind of. And a lot of sketchy shit was just done legally, right? So you have to use your own set of morals to decide what's right or wrong. Even if you know something is right and it's technically illegal. Like, did you know it's illegal to fill someone else's parking meter if it's empty? Did you know that? Yeah, you're probably a criminal. I bet you are. I'm pretty sure John Africa was talking about something larger, more life and death, but I don't think the kindness should be against the law, right?

Great, we solved everything. Now pack those up into a small box and put them in the back of your mind because later on we're going to remember these two points when things start to get messy. Okay, packed away. Because one thing about MOVE is that they're non-violent but that they will stick to their beliefs no matter what. So how does a non-violent organization go from kale and quinoa to armed shootouts with police?

Well that, my kitty cat friends, is a complicated road. So put your crocs into sport mode because we're gonna go for a walk and I'm gonna tell you a wild story. Do they have sport crocs? Anyways, hold on really quick. We need to pause for an ad break.

The only... This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. In the 1970s, the MOVE members changed locations from their little co-op community to a house in West Philly.

People who lived there say that this was a really nice neighborhood. It was a family neighborhood where everybody knew each other. I've always wanted to live in a town like that where like everyone knows each other. Is that real? I want to live there. So this included Move, who people at the time seemed to like a lot at first. They were a loud and lively bunch, but they mostly kept to themselves in the early days.

But MOVE were also well known in the city for holding protests at this time, and by 1975, Philadelphia began directly targeting MOVE by making a law that stated protesters couldn't organize in front of a government building.

The wording of this law was so vague that members of MOVE could really just be arrested anytime in public. So years later, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, they would later say like, hey, wait a minute, that technically isn't legal. But unfortunately, like this wouldn't happen until something really bad happened the following year at the MOVE house. Then they finally stepped up and were like, oh, whoops, we should fix that law.

So MOVE is out there protesting one day and then a huge fight starts between them and the police. Now it got so bad that a woman was hit over the head with a baton and she fell onto her newborn baby instantly killing them. Oh yeah. And to make matters worse, the police would later deny that the baby even existed at all. And it wouldn't even be until years later that historians would discover that this even happened.

Police messing with MOVE was nothing new at this point. And one historian tells us that they were constantly being harassed for the crime of simply having guns while being black. But this was the moment that changed everything for MOVE.

And this is when things really began to change for John Africa. Before this, the whole bear analogy about entering the cave and like Twinkie arms and stuff, all that, those were just words. Now, he believed it was time for a move to get serious.

So in 1977, they did just that. They started getting on the roof of their house and pulling out like a little bullhorn and just speaking about all of their political beliefs, chanting political slogans at all hours of the night. Now on top of that, they would bring guns out and then like, you know, just kind of show everybody like, yeah. And then they would be dressed in military clothes. So as you can imagine,

The neighbors are like looking out the windows and they're getting a little nervous. It was loud. It was constant. And it just changed the vibe from being like a family neighborhood to being a block people just wanted to avoid at this point. Police were called multiple times for noise complaints and disturbing the peace. When there were crimes nearby, people would assume it was members of MOVE since they always had guns and they were always talking about fighting.

And all this meant that the police had eyes on move at all times. Cop cars driving by, seeing who's coming and going, their stakeouts at all hours. And they just saw them up there with their guns, always yelling in their military uniforms. So now it was just kind of like, these are the worst neighbors ever. It was just causing all sorts of problems. I guess that's why we have HOA. I hate HOA actually.

The mayor of Philly at this time believed this group represented, quote, the worst of Philadelphia, end quote. And that mayor's name was Frank Rizzo. Frankie, he used to be the city's police commissioner, and he really, he really loved the police force.

And at this time, Philadelphia was famous for not exactly having, like, the greatest relationship with its black and brown residents. I mean, America was just coming out of its civil rights phase, and police relations were, you know, like, tense, to say the least. Like, there's one time when Frank was a cop. He arrested a group of black activists and had them strip searched in public and then invited the press to take pictures of the men naked.

Like that doesn't even serve a purpose other than flat out humiliation. And he obviously felt his power threatened by them. And so he would be like extra overboard with them to prove a point. It's just disgusting really. And he fucking sucks. And on top of that, Frankie saw to it that MOVE members would be arrested all the time. Even for something as small as like a freaking parking ticket. So yeah, Frank Rizzo was a real douche canoe.

I keep thinking about how his name sounds like a used car dealer. Like Frank Rizzo. No, I actually think of Grease. Wasn't her name Rizzo? The bad girl? Hmm. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, great name because you can kind of brand it as a douchebag name.

It's very douchey. Frank Rizzo? Anyways, moving on. Sorry. Anyway, as you might guess, Frankie, Frankie boy, he did not like the move house, okay? He freaking hated that house for no damn reason. And the police were constantly getting calls about them. And Frank wanted to show them like, oh, I'm the boss. I'm gonna show them who's boss. So Frankie would make the police do searches of the move house.

A lot of the times without any warning. I mean, he called them searches, but there were a lot of people living there, including children. And it was honestly probably just terrifying for them. Having police in riot gear randomly showing up and busting down your door. For what, Rizzo? For what? Plus, usually, usually they wouldn't find a damn thing. The thing is, MOVE was actually open to leaving under a few conditions, okay?

So they were like, hey, I'll leave, but here's a couple rules we have. First, don't hurt our animals. Okay, that's fair. Second, stop harassing our people. Super fair. Great. And third, even if we leave this house, it needs to be kept as a sacred space, like a church of some kind for us. And the city was like, okay, you know, we're on board with this plan. When do things ever go according to plan? Hmm?

They didn't exactly hold up their end of the bargain. Of course they didn't. Right off the bat, when the city started removing the animals, guess what they did? They started killing them instead. I know, it's fucked up. I'm sorry. And MOVE specifically asked them not to do that. So MOVE announced that, you know what? Fuck you guys. We're not going to leave. At this point, Frankie declares on live TV that his new strategy is basically to just starve them until they leave.

So they cut off the house's water and set up barricades. Police were parked outside of the house, prepared to kick all of them out and move refuse to stand down. Now this would last for hours. And then hours became days. And then freaking 15 months go by.

Yeah, they held out for 15 months. I think they deserve to stay at this point, you guys. Mm-hmm. The standoff with the cops lasted for over a year, and it was just a constant rotation of guards and police outside of the house. Honestly, it just seems like a goddamn waste of time for you, police people. Mm-hmm.

Well, in the last two months of the standoff, the police shut the entire block down and blocked it off to prevent supplies from going into the house, like toilet paper and stuff. They need that, right? They cut it off. Things were escalating now. So the police cut off their water, okay, so they couldn't receive water. They cut off the building's gas and electricity, and then at this point, they brought in a water cannon and aimed it at their house. For what?

You know, they're just threatening them. They're playing chicken and they're trying to see if Move is going to leave and they still weren't ready to leave. They're like, no, we're not going to move. Oh, Move. I get it. Well, guess what?

Frankie didn't like that very much. Oh no, he did not. So Frankie sent the police, all mounted up with their little gadgets and gizmos, to evict the MOVE members by force. And what happens next, honestly, is a little fuzzy because the story changes depending on who you ask. Yeah, of course. So I'll just tell you what everyone says and let you decide. But let's pause for an ad break first. ♪

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Your cash back really adds up. So dozens of police break into the house. But at this point, Move had already sent everyone to the basement to hide. So police got those big ass water canyons attached to trucks and they smashed the windows to the house and tried to flood the basement so everyone would have to get out.

When that didn't work, which, mind you, like, I don't know how that didn't work, but it didn't work, police officers decided to approach the house on foot, right? And they could see MOVE members, like, through the windows in the basement. So police say that the MOVE members started shooting from the basement. So police start shooting back. Now, police say MOVE shot first, but MOVE says they never shot at all.

All we know is that there was some shooting and one police officer was shot in the back of the neck and died. The police claim that the officer was murdered in cold blood by Move. But Move says to this day that it would have been impossible for them to have killed the officer because he was shot in the back of the neck and the officer was actually walking towards the building. So how could they have shot him in the back of the neck? You know?

What moves has happened is that a fellow police officer accidentally shot him. But no matter what the true story is, this directly led to move surrendering with nine of the members being arrested and sent to prison for life. For life. And their house was bulldozed immediately after they left.

Like the same day, they waited like seconds after they were arrested and they got the bulldozer out and they're like, and they just went over it. Thanks. Problem solved, I guess. Now, all of this nonsense and we haven't even gone to the bombing, which is like the main part of the story. Now you might be wondering like, okay, why am I telling you about all this like long standoff and stuff?

well because shush your mouth this is my show first of all and this is the part in the story where well from this point on the police just had it out for move okay and they believed move had killed one of their own and they wanted revenge in my personal opinion i don't know but it kind of seems that way so they would get that revenge in just a few short years in the form of a

So after the house was bulldozed, the members of MOVE that did not go to jail, they relocated to a middle-class black neighborhood known as Cobbs Creek Park in Philadelphia. And if you thought the last neighborhood sounded nice at first, well, this place must have seemed like heaven to MOVE.

People from the neighborhood said it was a very peaceful block. Everybody knew each other. There were like trees along the streets where kids could just play and then they would have big cookouts with the whole fricking block, okay? It just seemed like one big safe, close-knit family. But that didn't change that this is the 80s and race relations were tense between black Americans and police.

The police were incredibly aggressive towards black residents. And because the mayor, remember the Frankie Rizzo guy, him, he was up for reelection. He would literally, this is no joke, he would literally tell voters to quote, vote white elections.

Yeah, he was an asshole. And when MOVE found a home in Cobbs Creek, they immediately started drawing attention. So neighbors started complaining that the MOVE house was infested with rats and roaches. And some of them even said that MOVE members were beating up people in broad daylight.

They also boarded up their windows and doors, which honestly, it just wasn't a good look and it made their house stick out even worse. On top of this, Move had apparently reinforced their roof with steel, like it was some sort of bunker.

Yeah, so it was just kind of looking like they were preparing for battle. And after the standoff back in 1978, the police commissioner stated that their new policy with MOVE was more of a hands-off approach. Like, sure, they would investigate crimes and stuff, but they were not going to have another 15-month standoff. Oh, nay, nay, they did not have the time for that.

And by the mid 80s, there was a new mayor in town, the first black mayor of Philly. And his name was Woodrow Wilson Good. But he preferred to go by Wilson. I wonder if his wife's name was Edith.

Now, MOVE was quite a fan of Mr. Wilson Good. They considered him an ally. This is because back before he was mayor, he was a city employee who spoke with MOVE often about getting their members released from prison after the 1978 standoff. MOVE had been saying that their nine family members didn't deserve a life sentence in prison for

killing of that police officer, you know, because they couldn't even prove that it was them in the first place. Also, there is no way nine people shot that guy with one bullet. I think if we do math, that doesn't make sense. And Wilson Good, he agreed with them. So great, they're like, he's on our side. We love him, yay, you know? Move would later say that Wilson helped them meet with lawyers who thought there was a case for getting them out of jail.

So when Wilson talked about running for mayor, MOVE was like, yeah, we support it.

and they wanted to have a friend in the city government. Wilson promised them that he could help them in any way he could, and honestly, MOVE just felt they could trust him to be sympathetic to the Black Liberation Movement since he himself was African American. But, of course, when Wilson got elected mayor, he basically ghosted them.

Oh yes. And not only did he not help MOVE release its members, he classified the group as a terrorist organization. Betrayed? They sure were. But this isn't his final act of betrayal. Oh nay nay. Because after seven years of living in this neighborhood, the complaints were piling up and Wilson Good now gave police the permission they needed to evict MOVE again.

Now, we saw how this last eviction attempt went, remember? We just talked about it not that long ago. Great. And the members of MOVE had said that they were never willing to give in to the police, okay? And they were so ingrained in their beliefs, they were willing to die for the cause. You are not moving them. Let's go to an ad break really quick.

quick. Okay, BRB. Sorry about that. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer survey who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. Hi, welcome back. It's Mother's Day now. Did you know? Aw, it's May 12th, 1985 in Philadelphia.

People are giving their mom a shoulder massage, visiting grandma, coming back from church, whatever they do, you know. Until suddenly people started hearing knocks at their doors. Knock, knock, knock. Who's there? It's the police. Hi. And they're saying that everyone needs to leave the neighborhood right now.

Why? You know, why? Why? Hello, it's Mother's Day. The police were like, oh, we're just going to do some light investigating around the move house. We want to make sure that everyone's safe and it's clear out here. No, no big deal. Because it's not like they were going to say like, well, we're going to bomb the shit out of this place. Get the fuck out of your house. And people probably remember the violent shootout and standoff from just a few years ago. So people just grabbed their stuff and they bounced. BRB.

So police set up barricades around six whole blocks surrounding the move house so people could not enter the street that move lived on. So 500 cops set up outside of the house, again, for what? We don't really even freaking know. And they had the SWAT team, snipers, and even some big-ass guns mainly used for combat. Okay? They even brought a machine gun meant for taking down tanks. Tanks! Tanks!

What are they doing with that in a freaking suburb like housing area? We don't know. Now, what's absolutely most crazy about all of this is that what they were doing was legal. There's nothing illegal about what they were doing. Now, there was a state police helicopter hovering up above and the cops even shut off the water and electricity for the whole block.

I mean, this is scary. At some point, something bad is gonna happen. And if we were in that house, I mean, come on, we'd be shitting our pants. I'm sure everyone in the house was terrified. They're surrounded. They cannot go anywhere. And they have a helicopter up above, tanks,

What are they supposed to do? Now, you should know that there were about 13 people in the house at this time. There were six kids and seven adults, including John Africa. They were all probably so freaking terrified. I mean, there's a small army outside with straight-up military equipment just standing

pointed their way. So they ended up staying out there well into the night and at 5:00 AM the next morning, the commissioner got a bullhorn to talk to them, basically demanding that they have to get out of their house. "You live in America, you have to follow our rules." You know? Oh no, he literally said that. "This is America, you have to follow the rules."

So, uh, MOVE got on their bullhorn and they demanded that their family members be released from prison. Because remember, they still had their nine family members in prison even though Mayor Good promised to release them. They were just holding them accountable, you know?

Well, Mayor Goode wasn't there that day and the police were like, yeah, we don't know anything about that situation. So you needed to leave or we're going to shoot you. And reporters say that Move responded by yelling all kinds of threats back at the police, as one probably would in that situation.

And this is when something really insane started to happen. Police started firing all those big ass guns at the move house. Now remember, this is all happening in a major US city in fricking broad daylight.

Police would later say that MOVE started shooting at them first, and they were just responding and protecting themselves from MOVE. But MOVE says they never even fired at the police. So apparently, the cops fired so many bullets that they had to call the police headquarters to get more.

Over 10,000 rounds were let off in less than 90 minutes. It's like 7 a.m., okay? They haven't even had their breakfast burritos yet, okay? And the police are basically at war with MOVE. Over what? We don't know. They start firing a water cannon into the basement of the house like they did in the standoff seven years earlier just to try to flood MOVE out.

Bitches. And then suddenly the gunfire stopped. Move still hadn't left and the mayor called off most of the police aside from a few posted up outside of the Move house. So it's like, thanks mayor. You kind of stepped in a little too late though.

Cops left the barricades up and still didn't let people back into their homes. The street was basically empty and it became eerily quiet for like 10 hours. Witnesses at this time described the calm as completely unnerving, just pure, uncomfortable silence. Crickets.

And then, just after 5 p.m., that calm was disrupted when the helicopter from earlier returned. And a man inside the helicopter leaned out and dropped something from the side. And what he dropped was a bomb.

A full-blown real bomb. Oh, yes. Now, it was called a satchel bomb. And for those of you who aren't weapon experts like me, I'm not, hi. A satchel bomb is something used during war that is stronger than dynamite. It's intended to blow up mountains. Oh, yeah, mountains. Not family homes. I know, because when I heard, like, satchel bomb, I was thinking, oh, my God, like a satchel purse? Is that where we get the name from?

It has nothing to do with that, though. But let me tell you this. This is a little side note, a little fun fact, because you're never going to believe this, okay? One of the ingredients of a satchel bomb is called Tovix. And guess who makes it? Guess. Plot fucking twist. Our friends over at DuPont.

They want to kill us or something, don't they? What are they up to over there? Why are they always involved in these stories? Hello? DuPont? So, as soon as the bomb was dropped, fire trucks came in and started spraying the house down. But newspapers would later say that fire trucks were just a distraction to allow for a second attack.

The helicopter came back and the officer inside dropped another bomb. Another bomb, god damn it. And this time he aimed for the metal bunker on top of the house. Now the bomb, it landed and debris flew everywhere.

This bomb, it started a fire that quickly spread through the Cobbs Creek neighborhood. And the crazy part is that the police just told firefighters to just let it burn. They would later claim that it was because they heard loud pops coming from the bombed house and they couldn't tell if those pops were just glass exploding in the fire or gunshots. So they're like, just let it burn.

Whatevs. This fire would end up destroying two entire city blocks, burning 61 houses, and leaving over 250 people homeless. For what? I know. I don't know.

Move said that they had tried to escape, but police would shoot at them as they ran away. Police even admitted that they could see shadowy figures moving in the fire, but they were shooting at them because they weren't sure if they were going to attack them or not. The shadows, they might attack us, so let's just shoot them first.

At least one child was for sure killed by the gunfire, and MOVE still claims to this day that several of the other people who died were killed by it too. 11 of the 13 MOVE members in the house died during the bombing, including founder John Africa.

The only survivors were a woman named Ramona Africa and a child named Bertie Africa. They escaped through a basement window, and as soon as the police found them, Ramona Africa was arrested for riot and conspiracy and would later be sentenced to seven years in prison. No testimony was given at her trial that said she ever even held or fired a weapon.

And not really sure how that would like lead to a prison sentence, but I guess since they had already killed everyone else, they just could do whatever the hell they wanted. Yeah, lots of people just died and now we're gonna take an ad break.

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They wanted to get to the bottom of whether the police were justified in even attacking the house in the first place, and I think we can agree that the answer would be no. After all, the city thought MOVE was a terrorist organization, so the assumption was that MOVE had a lot of weapons at the house. But after a long investigation, they were able to confirm that there were no automatic weapons, machine guns, or explosives in the house.

the committee in charge of the investigation were mad and fast-tracked the case big time. I mean this went all the way to the top babe. And the case went before a grand jury who concluded that actually nobody should be charged for this. God damn it. I know. Oh what? Why? You guys, I don't know. Apparently the grand jury claimed that this is because the deaths were accidental

Yeah, they accidentally dropped a bomb and they accidentally blew up a house. It was all accident. Their reasoning for not charging anybody involved was that they died in the fire after the bombing. So it wasn't actually the bombs that killed them. It was whatever happened afterwards. Anyways, you don't just like bomb citizens. I think we can all agree on that, right?

Great. There were so many other ways to get into that house besides dropping a freaking bomb on them. Especially when they weren't even sure if there were weapons in the house in the first place. I wonder if they even just tried knocking. Hello? Did they knock? Ding dong. Doorbell? Did they call?

Anything? There have been so many experts since the ruling that have come forward to say that the deaths were in no way accidental and that those officers should have been charged. But to this day, not one person has been charged or even held accountable. So in the middle of all of this, I'm sure you've got a lot of questions because so do I.

How the fuck did the Philadelphia police legally get their hands on a bomb meant to be used in a war zone? I think that's a fair question to ask, right? Well, the answer, my friends, I guess is pretty simple because the military said it was okay.

The end. No, I'm just kidding. The Philly police used a special program that none other than our pal President Ronald Reagan came up with that allowed local police forces to get legit military stuff. So remember in the episode we did about our girl cocaine? Good times, you know. And how Ronald Reagan thought of himself as like a man who was tough on crime.

Well, back in 1981, his administration passed something known as the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act. That's a very long name. It's very complicated, but it's honestly easy to explain. This act tore down the walls between cops and the military, making it so cops anywhere in America could get tanks, grenade launchers, or machine guns just because they wanted them.

Great. So they could basically just walk into military bases and be like, "Hello, sir, I'll take one tank, please." "Missiles?" "Hmm, yes, I'll take one of those too." "And what's your bomb of the day?" "Hmm, that sounds good. I'll take the lot."

Technically, it was supposed to be excess from the military, like the things they didn't need. But some of the things that the police forces get their hands on is like brand new and very dangerous. Police aren't trained to use bombs. They're trained to like arrest thieves, right? I don't know. It's a very different skill set. What are we doing, you guys? What is this?

But like this wasn't new for police in America. The militarization of police had been on the rise for decades at this point because of everything from anti-war protests to the civil rights movement. Police felt that they needed stronger weapons and equipment to be more effective. And Reagan, well, he was like, yeah, yeah.

And in his quest to be as tough on crime as possible, Reagan just beefed it up in a way that we still see today. Thousands of law enforcement agencies have used this program today to get everything from night vision goggles to grenade launchers.

But honestly, I mean like the night vision goggles, I kind of get it. Like those are pretty cool. I kind of want some. Wouldn't it be fun if we all got them and like we just like had a little night where we like night vision goggle night and we just played. It'd be fun, right? Anyways, so what happened with Move and the two survivors is what you're probably wondering. Well, Ramona Africa, she went to prison for seven years. For what? Again, for what?

We don't know. And the kid, Birdie Africa, went to live with his father who was not part of MOVE. Another thing to remember is that there were still nine members of MOVE in prison during the bombing. Well, as of 2019, they've all been released. In 1996, some of the survivors of the MOVE bombing, they got $1.5 million from the city of Philadelphia. This was a way that they finally got something from the city acknowledging that they

Fucked up. I mean, well, kind of. Money doesn't fix anything, you guys. Money does not bring lives back. The city didn't really apologize up until 2020, which is something, I don't know. Great. Like, what do they want, an applause? No. No. One thing about Wilson, good. To this day, he has always claimed that he was unaware the police were going to bomb MOVE.

He was like, yeah, kick him out, sure. But Wilson has always said that he regrets what happened on May 13th, 1985. Out of everybody involved, he is probably the only person to be held accountable in any way for the bombing, even if it's just him himself alone.

holding himself accountable. So let's talk about the rebuilding now. So the city basically leveled like two whole blocks and displaced hundreds of people. They immediately started to rebuild and the city's, I'm laughing because the city screwed that up too, okay? People were able to start moving in just a few years after the bombing, but after 10 years, the houses started falling apart again. Yeah. Yeah.

like they were made of sand or something. So they investigated further, and it turns out the guy that they hired to fix everything was using cheap, flimsy materials to rebuild the houses so that he could steal all of the extra money he was saving from the city. I'm laughing because does it ever end? Does it ever end? Ugh.

He would go to prison for that. Great, somebody was held accountable for something for once. Well, what now? 'Cause these houses are unlivable now and it's the city's fault.

Well, the city ended up offering $150,000 to every household on that block to relocate in the year 2000. Now this was almost 15 years after the bombing. As of 2018, they built some new houses that are super nice and supposed to be way better. But I'm sure after we wait for 10 years, you know, I'm sure they're gonna issue another apology. We'll see. Fingers crossed. So to recap...

They went in with the intention of evicting one house in 1985, but instead they destroyed 61 houses and killed 11 people.

Only in 2018, 33 years later, did they finally get their shit together to correctly build them again. And get this, now nobody from the neighborhood can even afford to live in them. Yeah, really seems like there was probably a better option somewhere in there. Way to go, city of Philadelphia. You did it. You did it. You really are the heart of America. But I mean, when you think about it, yes, move may have been a bad neighbor.

But we are supposed to have a process for how these things are done. And at no point in the process is there a bomb involved. And you're probably thinking about like this process that I'm mentioning right now that we're all supposed to stick to. It makes you wonder, why the hell did those people have to go into all that jail time? Crickets, exactly. We got no answers here, huh? Great. After the bombing and the shootout and the aftermath of it all, why didn't their cases get reviewed sooner? Huh?

I'm sure it's making you mad just thinking about this. That's where the story really ends. I don't know. Just because someone lives a different way than you or has a separate hard to understand set of beliefs, you would think it doesn't mean that their life is any less valuable, right? But on that day in 1985, the Philadelphia police and government decided that 13 lives were expendable because they were getting too impatient.

they decided to do something they fully knew would put human lives in immediate danger. They had a lot of time to think about what they were doing and maybe even stop because step one, they had to get a bomb, right? Step two, they had to load the bomb into a helicopter so they could have stopped doing this, right? Someone had to put gas in that helicopter. Someone in city hall had to give the green light like, yeah, fucking do it. Someone had to throw that bomb out of the freaking helicopter.

They had many chances to stop, drop, and roll and just not do it. It's a little bit ironic how, while trying to protect society, they became what they claim to be protecting us from. Period.

What a gross story, huh? Now the biggest difference between what happened in Cobbs Creek Park in 1985 and what we see on our screens today in places like Ferguson is how people are able to spread information quickly. Now back then, this was treated like a local thing and it was quickly just kind of like swept under the rug. But if police dropped a bomb on its citizens today, I mean, there'd probably be thousands of videos, hashtags, and protests all around the country within minutes. At least I'd hope. I'd hope.

The only reason we don't know about the move bombing today is because nobody wanted us to find out about it. Now ain't that some shit? Well everyone, thank you for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions, even random questions. It may lead you down a rabbit hole and you get to learn something new.

I'd love to hear your guys' reactions or thoughts on this story, so make sure to use the hashtag darkhistory over on social media so I can see what you guys are saying. Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs and also catch my murder mystery in makeup which drops every Monday. I love and appreciate you guys so much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. Bye.

Dark history is an audio boom original. That's right, bitch. This podcast is executive produced by me, Bailey Sarian, Chelsea Durgan from Slash Management, Kimberly Jacobs, and Justin Cummins from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kiven, Daryl Christon, Spencer Strathmore, and Claire Turner. Research provided by Tisha Dunstan.

Our writers are Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, Joey Scavuzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. Today's historical consultant, we want to thank Professor Richard Kent Evans. And me again, I am your host, Bailey Sarian. Goodbye. Amazon Pharmacy presents Painful Thoughts.

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