Pete Dexter: When it ended, there was only one way to believe

Finally it happened.

After 15 months - 15 goddamn months of taking abuse, bending every way there is to bend to avoid it - the police waded into the filth at 33d and Pearl Sts. yesterday morning to bring them out.

And MOVE opened up.

Hiding behind the lives of their children, the only thing they had that anybody cared about.

All along they had used the children. They had thrown the food and water the city offered for them in the street, saying they would all eat or they would all starve. Now they used their bullhorns to broadcast the sounds of their babies crying.

But this time the police went in. And this time MOVE opened up with shotguns, carbines, a Mauser. And when it was over James Ramp - who had a wife and a child of his own - lay open-mouthed, dead on the sidewalk.

William Krause and Thomas Hesson were in serious condition in the hospital, Krause gut-shot, Hesson hit in the chest. Another cop, Charlie Stewart, was shot in the leg.

And about a dozen other firemen and cops came away with injuries that were classified as not serious. They got to go home to their wives and children and try to tell them they should not be afraid. That it was all over now.

And Delbert Africa stood in front of Municipal Judge Louis Hill a few hours later and asked when the cop who had " shot (him) in the chest and broken (his) jaw" would be arrested.

" People come walkin' into a peaceful house with guns, they got what they deserved," he said.

Delbert Africa and 10 other members of MOVE were all arraigned in Municipal Court at the Roundhouse yesterday afternoon on charges of murder, weapons violations, conspiracy.

They came out in twos and threes, mostly barefoot, and stood handcuffed in front of the judge in prison gowns while he read the charges and ordered them held without bail on murder, and more than a quarter of a million dollars for each member on the other charges.

Edward Africa, who came out with Delbert, was wearing a gown that exposed his genitals.

"I 'spose there ain't no women present," said a man in the audience. "I 'spose that's the way they treat you if you white."

Meanwhile, Delbert was telling Judge Hill that the murder charge was ridiculous. "What happened was a white racist cop shot the black cop and killed him," he said.

Twenty or 25 spectators - almost all MOVE sympathizers - watching from behind a grime-stained plastic shield agreed with that. "That's right," they said, "right on. Racist mother------." Nobody mentioned the fact that James Ramp was white.

Some of the women were crying. "They're people, just like us," one of them said. "They got no right to treat Delbert that way . . . break his jaw."

Ten minutes later, the same woman was saying, "Right on," while Merle Africa told Judge Hill that the whole world was watching what was going on in Philadelphia, and that he and Frank Rizzo and the police wouldn't get away with it.

"You just like the German Nazis, you mother------," she shouted. "You gas all our babies, try to kill them, try to drown them next. You mother------s ain't gonna stick us in them gas ovens . . . "

Which was about when some of the spectators began shouting," Right on," and "Long live John Africa."

Then Jeanne Africa, who was standing next to Merle waiting for her chance to call the judge a motherf-----, starting shouting. "You can't kill our babies, you assh---. You can't shoot Chuckie (Chuckie Africa was shot in the arm and was the only MOVE member wounded). You can't judge us, you ain't no f ----- God, you ain't nothin' but a stupid-ass motherf-----."

"You come from the bowels of a back-room bitch," Merle said - coming back in because Jeanne had suddenly gone completely hoarse. Merle began to walk away. When the policeman behind her touched her arm she pulled away. " Don't you touch me, bitch," she said.

In the audience, the woman who said Delbert had been mistreated and another woman - a small white girl with an Afro growing out of each armpit who said she lived across the street from MOVE headquarters - smiled at each other.

"Merle really told that f-----," the white girl said later.

"Right on," said her friend. " This ain't over."

Judge Louis Hill, who had spent most of the last hour shouting charges and bails and pauper's rights over all the people calling him a motherf -----, finally ran out of patience and cleared the court of everybody but the press.

Outside the MOVE supporters found some reporters to talk to. They talked about police brutality and the Nazis and what the cops had done to Delbert.

A lot of terminology sounded like something out of last week's hearings, when the members of the state House's subcommittee on police brutality threw around words like "Gestapo" and "occupying army" and then asked witness after witness if, in their opinion, we lived in a "police state."

Imagine the surprise when they said yes.

I stood there listening, feeling sorry for the subcommittee and the cooperation it had missed.

And later in the afternoon a reporter would ask Mayor Rizzo if some of what had happened couldn't be construed as police brutality. Rizzo blew up, and I don't think you can blame him.

His people were dead and wounded. They had gone in and taken 12 adult, armed MOVE members out without seriously hurting any of them. Along with about that many children. Delbert Africa did get kicked and pulled across some lumber by the hair.

When you're dealing with 300 human beings - which people tend to forget cops are - that can happen. Especially when you're also dealing with somebody who has been calling you motherf----- for 15 months and hiding behind kids.

Anybody who doesn't understand that either hasn't lived very long or hasn't been paying much attention.

And anybody who would try to make the case that this is another instance of police brutality, that person would be working a needless brutality of his own.