Lingering mystery: Why only 2 got out

It remains the most enduring mystery of the MOVE confrontation.

Did police gunfire in 1985 drive MOVE adults and their children back into their burning rowhouse to their death?

The MOVE Commission, which was set up to investigate the confrontation, concluded that it did. But a grand jury investigation by the District Attorney's Office decided that police had held their fire.

It is largely undisputed that at 7:30 p.m. May 13, 1985, about an hour after police bombed the MOVE house, at least two MOVE adults and two children tried to escape the flames the bomb ignited.

It also seems well-established that one of those adults, Conrad Africa, emerged with a rifle into an alley behind the MOVE house and fired several shots at surrounding police.

But only the adult Ramona Africa and a 13-year-old boy then known as Birdie Africa survived. Eleven others - Conrad Africa and five other MOVE adults and five of their children - were found dead in the rubble.

In its 1986 report, the MOVE Commission laid the blame squarely on police. The commission said, "Police gunfire prevented some occupants of 6221 Osage Ave. from escaping from the burning house to the rear alley."

Although police had denied shooting, the commission suggested they had lied and engaged in a cover-up. As evidence, the commission cited testimony from other police officers and firefighters who heard automatic or semiautomatic gunfire when MOVE members were trying to exit.

Only police had such weapons that day.

In other dramatic testimony, a police detective told the commission that three days after the disaster, a member of the police Stakeout Squad had yelled, "Dig over here. You'll find a body of a male I dropped when the female and the child came out."

Finally, Michael Ward, the boy once known as Birdie, told the commission that he had heard "the cops" firing.

Ramona Africa didn't testify before the MOVE Commission or the grand jury, but she told a jury in a 1996 civil trial that police had laid down fire.

She repeated that assertion in a recent interview.

"The instant that we could be seen trying to come out, the cops immediately started shooting at us. You could hear the bullets hitting all around us, forcing us back into the burning building," Africa said.

In a concurring statement with the MOVE Commission report, member Charles W. Bowser was emphatic that police had fired at the MOVE backyard.

Bowser wrote: "I conclude that more than one police officer shot at the residents of 6221 Osage as they tried to escape the fire. I do not believe the testimony that one or more of the persons who ran from the burning house into the yard then ran back into the burning house for no apparent reason.

"Those who fled the fire made their decisions to save their lives. If any of them returned into the fire, it was because there was a greater threat to their lives in the yard. That threat was bullets from police weapons."

A month after the MOVE Commission issued its findings about the alley, they were rejected in a report by a grand jury convened by District Attorney Ronald D. Castille.

Significantly, the grand jury said the police had told the truth when they denied firing. "Some officers testified with immunity and, thus, could freely have admitted to firing at MOVE," the grand jury said.

As for Birdie's recollections, the grand jury said he was mistaken. It concluded that he had mistaken the roar of the fire and the crackling of burning electrical wires and a transformer for the sound of police gunshots.

The district attorney's investigation also concluded that the police detective had misunderstood the remark from the Stakeout officer. That officer, in turn, denied shooting anybody and said he had talked of seeing a MOVE member who had "dropped out of sight," not that he had "dropped" him with a gunshot.

In sum, the grand jury said, MOVE members decided to turn back and return to the burning house "out of fear, confusion, a mistaken belief that police were firing at them, or that the garage was safe."