City ordered to pay $1.5 million to plaintiffs in MOVE bombing | 1996

This story appeared in The Inquirer on June 25, 1996.

Eleven years after a police bomb turned a West Philadelphia block into a smoking ruin, a federal jury yesterday found that authorities used excessive force against the radical group MOVE and ordered the city to pay $1.5 million in damages.

In an unusual decision, the jury also imposed a novel form of penance on former Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor and former Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond, who directed the police assault on the MOVE house May 13, 1985, which left 11 people dead.

Besides holding them liable for a share of the $1.5 million in compensatory damages, the jurors ordered Richmond and Sambor to pay $1 a week each in punitive damages for the next 11 years to Ramona Africa, a survivor of the fire, and two other plaintiffs.

Jurors said they ordered the payments for 11 years because the deadly clash occurred that long ago. Every week until 2007, they said, Sambor and Richmond will have to ponder the harm they did. At the same time, the amounts are nominal — less than $1,800 apiece.

``The one thing we did agree on was that both sides were wrong,’' said juror Janet R. Perry-Schaeffer, 53, a nurse from Northampton County. ``The question was how did we deal with that.’'

The seven-member jury returned its unanimous verdict shortly after 4 p.m. yesterday after nine days of deliberation. It said the three defendants owed Ramona Africa $500,000 in compensatory damages — $400,000 for pain from the burns she suffered and $100,000 for disfiguring scars.

The jury awarded a second plaintiff, Louise James Africa, $500,000 from all three defendants for the suffering her son, Frank James Africa, endured as he died in the MOVE house on Osage Avenue.

Six brothers and sisters of MOVE founder John Africa were awarded a total of $500,000 from the city and Richmond. Sambor was not a defendant in their lawsuit.

Though they expressed displeasure at the outcome, city officials had feared a larger monetary award — and had paid larger sums to settle previous lawsuits stemming from the disaster. Mayor Rendell said before the trial that the case could cost taxpayers ``millions and millions.’'

It was unclear whether Sambor and Richmond would have to pay any damages. The city’s general practice is to cover such awards against public servants, but Rendell administration officials said they would review the verdict before deciding.

U.S. District Judge Louis H. Pollak still must rule on motions from Sambor and Richmond contending that they enjoy immunity for their actions. If Pollak grants them immunity, the verdicts against them will be set aside. The judgment against the city would stand.

Ramona Africa, 41, the only adult MOVE member to emerge alive from the burning rowhouse at 6221 Osage Ave., claimed vindication..

``I didn’t hold out for 11 years to go to court and not settle this case for some damn money. This is not about money,’' she said. ``This is about taking a stand for all people so that this government knows that the people ain’t gonna have them bombing people and burning people alive.’'

A crestfallen Richmond, 64, called the result ``a loss, an absolute loss,’' and said he took no comfort in what seemed a relatively small amount of damages.

``Two of the plaintiffs were armed combatants in this siege, the other one’' — Ramona Africa — ``was less than truthful on the stand,’' Richmond said. ``And apparently they convinced the jury and we did not. It’s as simple as that.’'

Sambor, 68, declined to comment, as he had through eight weeks of testimony and the two-week wait for a verdict.

The 1985 clash turned a leafy West Philadelphia neighborhood into a war zone. MOVE members, barricaded in a rowhouse they had fortified with tree trunks and a rooftop bunker, faced 500 police officers armed with M-16 rifles and Uzi submachine guns.

Police encircled the Osage Avenue house before dawn and demanded that MOVE members surrender. A gun battle erupted and raged for 90 minutes. Police poured thousands of rounds of ammunition into the house.

The standoff reached its apocalyptic climax that evening, when police dropped a bomb on the MOVE compound from a helicopter, hoping to dislodge the bunker. A fire broke out, and Sambor and Richmond decided to let it burn until it had destroyed the bunker.

The blaze spread out of control and engulfed an entire city block. When it was brought under control hours later, six adults and five children in the MOVE house were dead. Sixty-one houses were in ashes. Two hundred and fifty people were homeless. It was the worst residential fire in Philadelphia history.

Rendell called the jury’s action a ``compromise verdict’' that was easy to understand. ``You don’t burn down a house and let the fire burn without there being a real feeling that this was something where someone screwed up,’' he said.

City Council President John F. Street voiced relief that the damages award wasn’t larger.

``The city is very fortunate to have this level of damages awarded,’' Street said through a spokesman. ``The fact is that this was an undeniable tragedy. Lives were lost, and the compensation could conceivably have been much higher.’'

But lawyer William H. Brown 3d, chairman of a commission appointed by then-Mayor W. Wilson Goode to investigate the disaster, saw little to admire in the verdict.

``When you look at the excessive weaponry they [the police] had, and the fact that they dropped the bomb on a rowhouse in the middle of a street that contains not only adults but children, and in addition it started a fire and a deliberate decision was made to let it burn knowing there were human beings in the house — it’s outrageous,’' he said.

The verdict ``really means that others who may be inclined to do something similar may feel they’re not going to be punished severely for it,’' Brown said.

Police Lt. Frank Powell, the officer who dropped the bomb on the MOVE house, was disappointed for a different reason.

``They brought this on themselves,’' he said of MOVE members. ``I still contend they started the fire. It’s a shame to have the taxpayers of the city pay a terrorist group.’'

Ramona Africa’s lawyer, Andre L. Dennis, a former head of the Philadelphia Bar Association, said the jury’s most important finding was that city officials deserved to be punished.

``I think what happened was a profound statement about the event that happened 11 years ago,’' he said. ``That jury has drawn a line in the sand and said that we’re not going to countenance that kind of action by the city of Philadelphia or any other city.’'

Laverne Sims Africa, a sister of John Africa, evidently upset by the size of the judgment, called it ``a racist verdict’' in an angry comment moments after the jury read its decision. She declined to elaborate. The city has already paid about $90,000 each to settle three lawsuits brought on behalf of other MOVE members killed in the clash. And it paid $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit over the deaths of the five children. Their deaths, the judge emphasized several times, were not an issue in the latest trial.

Only Friday, the jury announced that it had reached a verdict on only one defendant and was deadlocked on the two others. One juror, who reportedly was worn out by the deliberations, was dismissed, and the remaining seven returned to court yesterday to try again.

The jury foreman, Dominic Deleo, 50, a tool-and-die maker from Northeast Philadelphia, began reading the complex jury sheets at 4:12 p.m. When the gist of the verdict became apparent, Ramona Africa smiled and gently pounded one of her lawyers on the back.

Sambor and Richmond were stoic, although Richmond’s clenched jaw and a throbbing muscle in his temple betrayed his anxiety. The $1-a-week in punitive damages will total $1,716 for Richmond over the next 11 years and $1,144 for Sambor. The amounts differ because Sambor was not ordered to pay any punitive damages to John Africa’s family.

Pictures of the helicopter swooping down on the MOVE house — and of the smoldering, ruined neighborhood the morning after — left a searing impression of a city government run amok. The spectacle of police bombing a residential neighborhood, and deliberately letting a fire burn, evoked horror and indignation around the world.

The debacle left a lasting stain on the career of W. Wilson Goode, the city’s first African American mayor.

A Philadelphia grand jury in 1988 called the tragedy ``an epic of governmental incompetence’' marked by ``political cowardice,’' poor planning and inept execution.

An 11-member commission Goode established to study the episode said: ``The plan to bomb the MOVE house was reckless, ill-conceived and hastily approved. Dropping a bomb on an occupied rowhouse was unconscionable and should have been rejected out of hand.’'

Ramona Africa was the only person prosecuted in connection with the disaster. She was convicted of riot and conspiracy and spent seven years in prison.

Her lawsuit and the two others decided yesterday were filed in 1985 and 1987. Goode and Leo A. Brooks, the city’s managing director in 1985, were dismissed from the case before trial. Judge Pollak said their decision to drop the bomb — ``notwithstanding its tragic consequences’' — was reasonable under the legal doctrine that authorities can use deadly force to make arrests under certain circumstances.

The decision by Sambor and Richmond to let the fire burn, Pollak ruled, was a different matter. It was a questionable enough move, he said, to be examined by a jury. Goode had no role in that decision, the judge found, and Brooks had a minor role, if any.

The plaintiffs said city officials had squandered negotiating opportunities and ignored nonviolent alternatives.

Defense lawyers put the blame squarely on MOVE, which they depicted as a lawless organization spoiling for a fight.

MOVE was founded in the early 1970s by Vincent Leaphart, a handyman from the Mantua section of West Philadelphia. MOVE is not an acronym. The term’s exact meaning and origin are unclear, although one theory holds it’s an abbreviation of Community Action Movement, an organization founded by Leaphart.

A high-school dropout with a messianic presence, Leaphart preached an anti-technology gospel that was uncompromising in its rejection of modern life and laws. He adopted the name John Africa and persuaded about 40 followers to use the same surname.

Through the 1970s, the group — then based in a walled compound in the Powelton section — was involved in protests and clashes with the authorities.

People living near the original MOVE house on 33d Street, a few blocks north of Market, complained of garbage, excrement, rats and foul odors. In 1978, police blockaded the house for 55 days in an unsuccessful attempt to starve the occupants out.

On Aug. 8, 1978, police bulldozed a barrier MOVE had built around the house. Gunfire broke out, and a police officer, James J. Ramp, was killed. Seven police officers and firefighters were wounded.

John Africa and his followers then moved into a new residence at 6221 Osage Ave., in a working-class neighborhood near Cobbs Creek Park. Slats were nailed across the windows to block tear gas. Tree trunks were used to bolster the walls against possible attack.

And a massive bunker appeared on the roof. Almost as tall as a third story, it was reinforced with railroad ties and steel plates and had square gunports cuts in its sides.

The imprisonment of the so-called MOVE Nine became MOVE’s core grievance, eclipsing all other aspects of its philosophy.

MOVE began making hectoring speeches over loudspeakers mounted on the rowhouse. Neighbors complained that MOVE members ran along their rooftops at night, left raw meat out for stray animals, blocked off a common alley, and vilified those who challenged them.

Residents demanded action from City Hall. Officials hesitated, seeking to avoid a repeat of the 1978 clash. Finally, early on May 13, 1985, the authorities moved in. Neighbors were evacuated, and police surrounded the MOVE house.

At 5:35 a.m., Sambor — armed with arrest warrants for Ramona Africa, Frank James Africa and two others — gave them 15 minutes to surrender. A furious gun battle broke out.

Goode, Brooks and Sambor later hatched a plan to destroy the bunker with explosives.

At 5:27 p.m., Lt. Powell, commander of the city’s bomb-disposal squad, leaned out a state police helicopter and dropped a satchel stuffed with plastic explosives on the MOVE rooftop 30 feet below.

The bomb started a small fire. On the street below, Sambor asked Richmond whether they could let the fire burn a while to gut the bunker and still get the blaze under control. Richmond said they could.

But the fire leaped from house to house on Osage Avenue and then across to Pine Street. Of 13 people in the MOVE house, only two escaped — Ramona Africa and 13-year-old Michael Ward, then known as Birdie Africa.

After testifying at the trial last month, Ward, now 24, was asked whether he blamed the city or MOVE for the tragedy.

``It’s probably both ways. But I don’t believe they should have dropped bombs and burned down the house like that,’' Ward said. ``They could have waited.’'

Inquirer staff writers Peter Nicholas and Julia C. Martinez contributed to this article.