Sebastian's running a photoshop contest for H-S's next ad campaign. Here's my entry:
The MOVE firebombing is not as well-known but similar to Ruby Ridge in many ways: disliked oddballs (much odder and less-liked, IMO, and way worse neighbors) run afoul of the law, massive overreaction by LEO, a great deal of denial, hindsight-driven justification and retconning afterwards. Pretty much S.O.P.
5 comments:
Good one, Roberta. I'd forgotten about that incident.
I remember hearing about it, quite some time ago...the police dropped some type of bomb to drive some people out of an area, and it got way out of control.
That's when Philly PD adopted the motto "Tora, Tora, Tora"
Should that be "3 shot 1/2 MOM (minute of Mom) at 100 yards"?
This isn't a Waco or Ruby Ridge situation, the MOVE folks were radicalized Back to Africa types and had a history of shooting first.
I used to live in Philly and we heard all about MOVE. They had a habit of shooting firemen who responded to a house fire at a different house (in West Philly near Drexel U). They eventually moved over to the house that is the subject of this post.
The firebombed house had been converted to a fortress with reinforced walls and firing holes *between* rooms. The bomb dropped from the helo ignited gasoline they were storing on the top floor...
As I recall from watching the debacle the PD kept the FD out (or the FD refused to go in to be shot) until the MOVE house was fully engulfed. By the time they started fighting the fire the whole row of houses was a total loss.
I had moved to SoCal and was job hunting and watched the whole thing on TV that day....
The only reason you don't hear about the MOVE bombing more often is that the Mayor and the Chief of Police were both black.
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