The Police War Against Move

Move: Confrontation In Philadelphia

Directed by Karen Pomer and Jane Mancini (1980) and Ben Gerry and Ryan McKenna (2004)

Film Review

This documentary is the most comprehensive I’ve seen on the African American group Move and the brutal campaign against them by the FBI and Philadelphia police. This would culminate in a police helicopter dropping a bomb on them in 1985. The resulting fire destroyed 61 homes adjacent homes. This documentary an amalgamation of a film Karen Pomer and Jane Mancini produced in 1980 and one Ben Gerry and Ryan McKenna put out in 2004.

Narrated by the late Howard Zinn, it begins by exploring Move’s philosophical beliefs, which led them to opt out of the capitalist white supremacist political/economic system by growing their own food and living in a nonviolent way that honored all the life.

The home the police bombed in 1985 wasn’t the first destroyed by the Philadelphia police. The first police assault against Move (in 1978) followed a long period of police brutality that caused two pregnant Move members to miscarry and the death (by blunt force trauma) of a Move infant.

The police allegedly laid siege, with tear gas, water canons and live ammunition, to Move’s first residence after neighborhood complaints of excessive noise, compost smells and stray animals. One cop died of gunshot wounds during this first assault. Nine Move members were charged with his murder, despite the absence of a weapon linked to the group (the police bulldozed the home before any forensic evidence could be collected).* All nine were convicted of third degree murder and conspiracy and sentenced to 30-100 years in prison.

Allegedly the second police siege, on May 13, 1985, also resulted from neighbor complaints. Although several Move members tried to escape the fire, were driven back into the flames by police gunfire. Eleven members, including five children, died. The sole surviving adult member, Ramona Africa, was arrested and served a seven-year sentence for inciting a riot.

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*Several reporters and sources within the Philadelphia police department assert the shots killing Officer Ramp came from behind, ie he was killed by a fellow cop.

 

The video can’t be embedded for copyright reasons but can be seen free at the following link:

Move – Confrontation in Philadelphia (1980 – Karen Pomer – Jane Mancini)

What Really Happened at Waco?

Waco: The Rules of Engagement

Directed by William Gazecki (1997)

Film Review

Waco is a long but well-made documentary about what was essentially an FBI coverup of an unlawful military assault on innocent civilians. What immediately struck me about the film are the obvious parallels between the military assault at Waco, the 1975 incident at Pine Ridge in which Leonard Peltier and other AIM activists were arrested for resisting an armed FBI assault and the FBI/Philadelphia police decision to bomb the MOVE compound in 1985 (see The Day Philadelphia Police Dropped a Bomb on 61 Families).

The documentary is anchored around a 1995 Congressional investigation which, unlike the whitewash of the JFK assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing and 9-11, successfully unearthed most of the sordid facts about the government’s illegal (and unconstitutional) military assault in Waco. Predictably the corporate media buried the investigation and its findings. Thus the systematic disinformation the Clinton administration disseminated about David, Koresh and the Branch Davidians is what remains uppermost in the public mind.

What surprised me most about the film was learning that the Branch Davidians weren’t a cult, that the Mount Carmel church where they lived wasn’t a bunker and that David Koresh himself wasn’t a deranged psychopath who buffaloed his followers into a virtual suicide pact.

The Branch Davidians were actually an old offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church which relocated from Los Angeles to the Mount Carmel center at Waco in the 1930s. Koresh (born Vernon Howell) was raised there and eventually selected as the group’s spiritual leader.

Testimony given during the Congressional hearings establishes quite clearly that the initial ATF assault (in which the Branch Davidians defended themselves and killed four ATF agents) was a public relations stunt aimed at influencing upcoming ATF appropriations hearings.

The supposed justification for the assault was the presence of illegal weapons on the premises. As good Texans, the Branch Davidians visited a lot of gun shows and bought and sold weapons as a source of revenue. The search warrant accused them of illegally modifying automatic weapons – which Koresh denied. He invited the ATF to come and inspect their guns in mid-1992. The ATF declined to do so.

Most of the media attention (and the search warrant itself) focused on the fact that Koresh had multiple wives, included several who were underage teenagers. While both polygamy and child rape are illegal under Texas law, they in no way justify a full scale military assault that kills innocent civilians, including the rape victims themselves.

The FBI would follow up the failed ATF operation with a full scale military siege (with tanks) that lasted 51 days.

The evidence presented during the hearings includes intriguing clips from a video camera FBI negotiators gave the Branch Davidians to talk about themselves and their beliefs and infrared footage showing the FBI, Janet Reno and Bill Clinton lied through their teeth about not firing on the Branch Davidians and David Koresh deliberately starting the fire that destroyed the compound.

It also comes out that the FBI deliberately destroyed the crime scene (as Bush would later do at Ground Zero), as well as systematically obstructing efforts by the local medical examiner and the Texas Rangers to conduct independent investigations.

May 13, 1985: the Day Philadelphia Dropped a Bomb on 61 Families

Let the Fire Burn

Directed by Jason Osder (2013)

Film Review

Let the Fire Burn is a documentary about the decision by the Philadelphia police to drop a bomb on the home of a radical African American group called MOVE. The resulting fire (which the police chose not to extinguish) killed eleven people (including five children) and destroyed 61 homes.

The film is drawn entirely from archival footage. About half is TV footage of the day-long police effort to forcibly evict the group and half testimony from the Special Philadelphia Investigation Commission. The latter found city officials and Philadelphia police guilty of “negligence,” though no criminal charges were filed.

Formed in 1972 as a Christian “back to nature” commune by John Africa, MOVE members took the same surname in honor of their ancestral homeland, wore their hair in dreadlocks, shunned technology, and promoted a diet of raw food.

Living together in a home in West Philadelphia, MOVE’s unorthodox lifestyle lead to conflicts with neighbors and clashes with the police. After a 1978 police raid resulted in the death of a MOVE infant, group members armed themselves as protection against further police violence. Later that year, officer James Ramp was killed in a shootout between police and MOVE members. Nine MOVE members were later convicted for this murder, although group members maintain Ramp was actually killed by friendly police fire.

In 1984, MOVE members set up in a new home on Osage Street in West Philadelphia. The following year after many complaints about loudspeaker broadcasts, as well as worries over health hazards, the city took action to evict the group by force.

After a daylong battle in which the police used teargas, water cannons and ultimately 10,000 rounds of ammunition in their efforts to evict MOVE members, authorities ordered military-grade explosives to be dropped on the house from a helicopter.

The most compelling scenes consist of testimony given by 13-year-old Birdie Africa, one of only two people to escape from the fire.

In the two days since I watched it, Let It Burn has been taken down from YouTube, but it can be rented from Amazon (for $3.99) or Netflix. See Zeitgeist Films for details.