Doomed to Fail - Ep 248: MOVE - The Bombing of Philadelphia

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

So! It's 1985, and we're in Philadelphia, PA. A group called MOVE has moved into the neighborhood - and they are a little annoying. They have a bullhorn where they talk about human rights very loudly, their kids don't go to school, and they might have guns (but they probably don't work). The city decides to do a good old-fashioned siege to get the members of MOVE out of their rowhouse. There are 13 people in the house, half of whom are children. The city brings a reasonable group of 500 police officers, A TOMMY GUN (among others), and ultimately, a bomb.    Source - https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/stories/move-osage-avenue Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortenthall James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans. And what your country can- Hey, Taylor, how are you? Good. How are you? I'm doing great. My eyes are dry, my nose is crusty, and my lips are cracked.

But that's life in the desert. That is life in the desert. I'm in, obviously, in Joshua Tree, but when I go to Las Vegas, I dream about lotion. Like, it's so much drier there than it is here that, like, my body is like, What are you doing? Also, I will say when the sand picks up here, it is like bullets. It really hurts when it hits you. We've definitely had to like stop softball games because of like tumbleweeds.

Yeah, it is beautiful. I do love the desert skate. It's fantastic. Yes, the desert is. And I'm glad that we postponed a week because last weekend was my weekend in Big Bear with my family. And holy shit, we were sick. I was so sick. I still sound a little gravel.

But last weekend, I couldn't talk at all. You still the flu? Yeah, we had the flu for so long. And my husband did such a great job. He was like, we're going on this vacation. So he like took us to dinner. We were like, uh, on the boat. I have pictures of like the kids sleeping.

And I'm like, okay. But he got us out on the boat. And they went to the movies and I went to sleep. But yeah, I felt terrible for like a solid week. And I finally feel like, I feel like a little bit of like the dizzy you feel when you're getting over the flu. But I'm like on the men. But last weekend, I couldn't talk.

at all. We called my sister for her birthday and I was like trying to like mime to Juan what to say to her because I couldn't even talk. It's awful. Brutal. Well, it's definitely a memory then. Yeah. So I'm gonna reflect back on my mind that time we went on this insane trip that dad forces to go on and we're all just deathly sick. Exactly dad. It was like boat, boat, boat, boat. We were like, oh. You're not dead sick. That's incredible. I don't know. Man, I'm not going on all the woods. He usually, he usually gets sick and he didn't. He held this family together. Nice. Yeah.

Well, do you want to introduce us? Yes. Hello, everyone. Welcome to doomed to fail. We bring you historical failures and disasters, and I am Taylor, joined by Fars. We are joined here to get a Taylor story. You are. I'm working on my 3D prints right now, so let me show this real fast.

Everyone, 3D printer, still, still such a wonderful thing that I bought. But I'm making these little corners for all my baseboards. because my baseball is a white and you know how like your baseball boards always get hit by like this stuff? Yeah. These are little white plastic baseballs with the cute little scallop.

It's so fun. Those would come in handy from a years ago when Luna was a baby? Yes. You made 24 of them? Yes. Wow. Yeah, when Luna was a baby

and she was teething, she was just fixated on the corners of my baseballs since they're all just not off. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I feel like mine were a mess So now they're not. So it's very exciting.

Okay, I have a story that maybe you have not heard before. It is definitely a disaster. My friend Julia suggested it. So Julia is my post-college roommate, good friend from studying abroad, and they texted me this story from Philly that I have not heard before. So I'm going to tell you about the move bombing in Philly in 1985. Does that sound familiar to you at all? Move.

Move. Move. Move. Yep. M-O-V-E. Moves bombing. No, I have not heard of that. Okay.

So it's sort of and not as, obviously not as well known, but it reminds me of Waco. It's like a siege, like a government siege of a group of people where the government way overreacted, essentially. And people died. in like a very wild, wild way. So I will walk through who move is, like the organization, the people that were in it, the person who started it, and then this tragedy that happened in 1985. So it's the 70s and obviously like always in America and everywhere, there's a lot of

complicated race relations. And there's like organizations like the Black Panthers, you know, and like other things. The last podcast on the left, they did their Patty Hurst thing. I remember how she was kidnapped by a group of people that were like the Sudanese Liberation Army. Yes. But they like they were actually very, they were actually violent. But like a lot of them like the guy in charge, I believe was black, but everybody else was just like white. Just like kind of like hang out and like trying to like be a part of it.

So there's like things like that happening. You know, these like little cultish groups that are coming like popping up like all over America. And in the 70s, move is founded. So it's all caps, M-O-V-E, that was a good question, but it's not an acronym. An acronym, acronym, not an acronym. It is, originally it was called the Christian Movement for Life, and the word move is just like, everything's connected in the world. When you meet someone who's also in it, you say, like, on the move.

Like, how are you doing? I'm on the move, which means you're, like, working and being part of this, like, organization. It was founded by a man whose name is John. Africa, which is very much obviously not his real name. So move is like, again, one of those organizations. It's a Christian movement for life. The word move is like, we're on the move. We're moving for all of humanity all over the earth. It was founded by a man named John Africa. Again, it's obviously not his real name. His name was Vincent Leppard. He was born on July 26, 1931. And after the Korean, he went to the, he was in the Korean War. After that, John and his family moved to a co-op in

Philly and that's like how he wants to live. He wants to live in like communal living with a bunch of people together like working together. So it's a little bit cultish because they like lived in a community and they like can be kept to themselves. They all took the last name Africa. So whether or not they're like related or whatever like everyone's last name is Africa in this group. And their basic tenant is like every single thing on earth has value and should be treated like equally with respect. And that includes, you know, people of all races. It includes animals. includes Earth itself. So they were like vegetarian and would protest zoos and things like that.

So all good stuff. Everyone should be equal. We should be nice to people. There we go. But they did it in like their insulated way, which obviously creeps people out. You know. So they were, you know, it was obviously like black liberation because it was like all people are equal. Anti-government ideas saying like we should be able to live the way that we want to live.

We want to live natural. We want to live in the environment. they had communal living, anti-capitalism, things like rejection of modern institutions. So, like, the kids didn't go to school, which, like, isn't great, you know? So there's, like, things like that happening. I like that every, no matter what the intention of any organization is, there's always a slipper of, like, deviant anti-social behavior in it. Exactly. And that's the thing.

It's, like, a little bit, you know, like, you can't really do that. Like, you know, decide to, like, live in your own little bubble inside of a city. But you know, you can certainly try. And that's what they're like trying. David Gresh tried. That's what I mean. Like you can certainly try. So some of the things that they did also were like, again, like not illegal, but

annoying because they would like have speeches about animal rights. But they would do it like in their front yard with a loudspeaker. I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to hear that. You know, like that was like a little annoying to the neighbors. They wouldn't comply with city authorities. and the government thought that they were stockpiling weapons. There's not a lot of evidence that they actually were.

Because we know that like WICO, they did have weapons. But I don't know how many they had in this case, move, like did not have as many, I think, as the government thought that they did. But they just wanted to live in their area. So, but between, but they were not being left alone. So between 1972 and 1978, there were 193 arrests of move members for all sorts of different things, like violation of parole, like, you know, like disturbing the peace, like having an illegal

gun, like all these different things that they were like being accused and charged of. So the first thing that happens, this is before our main story, is on August 8, 1978, the people of Move, which is like 20 or so people live in this like compound, like a house in Philadelphia, and they tried to evict them. The city was like, you can't live this way. You know, you are not following all of our rules and we need you to leave. And so they try to evict them. And there's a standoff and there is a shootout. And one police officer dies.

His name is James Ramp. And he was shot on the neck and died. I think he died on the scene. The problem is that eyewitnesses say that James Ramp, the cop, was shot from the opposite direction of the house where the move members were. So they think that he was killed by accident by another police officer. But in the end, the members of move are going to be charged for this murder and nine of them go to prison. Two of them die in prison and the last person wasn't released until 2020. That's actually the case in every situation like that where it's called felony murder where you don't have to pull the trigger.

You have to put the circumstances in place for somebody to have pulled the trigger if you need to be called police of the murder. her. So, I mean, even after or even like before this came up to it, like there's not a lot of evidence that they even had guns when this was happening. In the months, a couple months before in May, 1978, so this was in August, the police had gone to their house and asked to have all of their guns handed over. And they did go through the house and the ones, the guns that they had found, none of them worked.

So there's no evidence that they even had. functioning guns. But like, like you said, like the scene was set, everybody was agitated, a cop gets killed, nine members go to jail. So after that, like the move people are much more obviously like cautious and angry at the police. And the police are all obviously like cautious and angry about the people have moved. So they have, they are like in, in conflict. they tried to like force them to do things like force them to comply with more laws, force them to like stop talking so loudly outside their house, things like that. They didn't try any like, okay, you're eccentric, but like do it during this times or whatever. And there were like other organizations that could have been mediators between the police and move,

but instead they just like escalated and were like mad at each other. And now they hate each other. So in 1981, a couple of years later, the group moves to 6-211, Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia, which is a row house. So I'm sure you know what this is, but a house is a house that's built next to another house. So they're very, very close to each other. It's like a very, very

dense neighborhood. It's like a three-story two-story row house in Philly. And the other neighbors did complain a lot about them because they're like, okay, there's a bunch of people living in this house. They had their bullhorn where they would do their like messages. And again, like

messages of peace and animal rights, but also like, shut up. you can't do that in front of your house, like in this crowded neighborhood. But interestingly, the bullhorn was broken at the time of the bombing that we're going to talk about. But they hadn't done it in a while, but they did have like a bullhorn attached to the house. A lot of the message also after obviously the 1978 incident was like let our friends out of jail because they didn't kill that cop. You know, do that. I'll say this.

These people sound really, really annoying. They sound like an absolute nightmare to be around. And if they lived next door to me, yeah, I would probably, I don't know. I don't know. I do like a gas leak or something. I don't know. I have to do these four ways for me. Because these people are driving nuts.

Yep. Yes, but they're not dangerous. Like, they're annoying, but not dangerous. Still, very, very annoying. Yeah. Yeah. So they had built like a little, like a structure on top of, of the roof that is described as a bunker.

I can't really like figure it out. I think like a shed on top of the roof. Neighbors hated that. And also the children weren't going to school. So that's like obviously like, you know, there's a bunch of kids living in there. We don't know school like what's going on, which is like a reason to call the police. So eventually the police had arrest warrants for several members for like, you know, we think we suspect you have guns even though they didn't really have guns any of at all.

You know, you are sending the kids to school, like you're disturbing the people. So they decide that they're going to go in and take everybody out and make them leave this house. Even though they have like the history where the last time they tried to make them leave a house, there was a shootout. And again, there are like local organizations that could have been mediators and just like talk to each other. But instead they decide to do a siege to try to get them out of this for a house, like in the middle of the block in the middle of a city. So it is the mayor at the time, this is 1985, is Wilson Good. He is the first black mayor of Philly. And the police commissioner is Gregory Sanbor.

They both classified a move as a terrorist organization to justify like going in and trying to just like pull them out of this house and send them directly to jail. On Sunday, May 12th, 1985, it is Mother's Day. And the police go door to door in this neighborhood and they tell everybody. that they are going to try to remove the move people from this house. So everybody else needs to leave because it's not going to be safe. So they make everyone in the neighborhood leave. And they say, you're going to go back home in 24 hours. Just give us 24 hours and we'll get these guys out of here.

So everybody's like, cool, and they leave. Then they're like, we're going to serve these warrants and get these guys out of here. So on Monday, May 13th, 1985, it's very, very early in the more. morning. And Leo Brooks, who is a city manager, decides, he's a guy in charge of this operation. So to go to this house, there's about 13 people inside this house. The city manager brings a totally reasonable 500 police officers with him to get these people out of their house, but I don't even feel you could fit 500 people on a street. Like, how are they all getting there? Are they walking there? Do they have a lot of cars? There's like helicopters in the air. It's like a full on, a lot of

of people are coming. They turn off the water and the electricity to try to get them to come out. And at 535 a.m., which is like way too early for this shit, Leo Brooks, the city manager, is a speech with a loudspeaker, ironically. So he's had a lot of his loudspeaker out there. And he says, attention move. This is America. You have to abide by the laws of the United States. And then he goes on to saying, we do not wish to harm anyone. All occupants have 15 minutes to peacefully evacuate the premises and surrender. This is your only notice. 15 minutes start now. What was the charge by which they are

being removed? They are trying to get them out because they have warrants for their arrest for things like disturbing the peace. Okay, okay. So they're trying to get them out to like surrender to their warrants. So it reminds me of Waco because they're like,

yeah, we're just like minding your own business. You know, but you're like, they're like, what are they doing in there? We don't like it. We don't like the fact that they're in there, like, on their own. So the police there's no evidence that move members shot back. The police threw tear gas into the building

used fire hoses to like break the windows and like shoot water into the building. And they shot over 10,000 rounds of ammunition into this building where they knew that there were children. You know, like there are children there. There are 15 people.

Half of them are kids. Half of them are grownups. The police brought M16s, Oozys, shotguns, sharpshooter rifles, a Browning automatic rifle, and a Tommy gun to this. And just shot up at his house. Remember that from Bonnie and Clyde. They also had a Browning.

I can't believe that they were using a Tommy gun in 1985. Yeah. Right? I don't know. That's a heavy-duty arsenal. Even like an M-16 as like a little intense. Yeah. So no one comes out.

No police officers are being harmed. No one comes out of the building. I imagine that people in the building are already dead because they're dead from being shot through the walls because they shot so much stuff into the building. I didn't even see anything of any communication between them, but it's like waiting for them to come out and they're not coming out. So the police do the next obvious thing,

which is to drop a bomb on this residential house. You're joking. In the middle of Philadelphia on a Monday afternoon. Police have bombs? So they used a Pennsylvania State helicopter and the bomb they dropped is a 1.5 pound bomb made of Tovax, which I have not heard of, but it is like a dynamite, another kind of dynamite thing, alternative that you can get. So it was 1.5 pounds of essentially dynamite plus two pounds of FBI supplied C4 that they're going

to drop on the roof of this row house at 2 o'clock after you're not on Monday. And of course, bombing a row house from a helicopter is not a precision tactic. And it hits the house, immediately hits the gas line, obviously. And within two seconds, the house is on fire, obviously. Not just the house, but a house is next to it. Because like we said row houses, like there's no, if your neighbor's house catches on fire and it's a row house, your house is on fire. Like it's very like, you know, these are wooden structures like a little bit of brick, but it's not great. and the firefighters are there because obviously there were firemen there the whole time because they're always sent firemen with placement blah blah blah blah the firemen didn't turn on their hoses for an hour so they were there with their hoses plugged in but didn't do anything for an entire hour and then again this building is full of people the one there's two people who survived one of them is named romona she was one of the spokespeople for move she says

that she saw people trying to run out of the building to escape the fire and the police shooting them as they ran out. That was part of her testimony after it. And they just let it burn. They let the fire burn. It didn't go out until almost midnight. So they dropped a bomb at 2 p.m. And they let it go for 10 hours. It destroyed the house, obviously, and then the neighborhood. It left 250 people homeless and destroyed 61 houses in the area. In the area. in the end 11 people that were in the house were killed they all had the last name africa because they were like you know in this group if that was the thing but it was john ronda teresa frank conrad tree delisa netta little phil tamaso and raymond romona she survived and then a young man named bertie he was only 13 and those are the two people that that survived in the house after they went through it after the fire they only found two pistols two shotguns and one rifle. So, like, if they shot back at all, it was, like, hardly anything, obviously compared to, like, the freaking Tommy gun and the bomb that they dropped on them to try to get them to come out.

So. For you. Mm-hmm. If you name your kid, Tree, are they obligated to join some sort of a hippie cult? I think we absolutely have a kid named Tree in our, like, circle of kids around here. Oh, to edit the South Bend. Great. No, you don't have to.

They don't listen. They don't listen to this. And also. I'm sure, I mean, they have to have heard that feedback. It reminds me of the last podcast episode where the girl's name was Venus and Henry was pretending to be your dad, like, just please go by your birthday. Christine. It's like, no, I'm Venus now. It's like, I just don't want you to die in a cold. Yeah, it's not, it's not great. So, of those people that I just named, six of them were adults and five were children. The youngest was only

seven. So definitely children died in this for for a reason. So obviously the city is like overreacted a little bit because we destroyed so much stuff, killed so many people, dropped a bomb on a city block in the middle of the day,

you know, lots of things. Julia, my friend who suggested this, they told me that their mom was a teacher at this time and they were like listening to it on the news. It was a Monday, you know? And like the kids were like, what's going on? Like our city is being bombed by the police. least, you know.

Were you guys, where were you, where were you when Waco happened? New York, Nevada? I wasn't, I wasn't, I was maybe in high, in, like, eighth or ninth grade. I don't know what year it was, but I was in, maybe in Las Vegas. We're all getting that, like, drilled into your heads the way we work. So I was in Dallas. So, like, obviously we got it, like, a lot. I definitely, like, knew it was happening, I feel like.

I think it was, like, on the news. And I also feel like, I don't know. me just watched the news that night? I don't remember what life was like back then. But like I remember it happening, but I don't. I'm sure you got more of it because you were in Texas. I think so. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the city formed a commission called the Move Commission to be like maybe we shouldn't have done that. It concluded that dropping a bomb on an occupied home was unconscionable. Yeah. No, that makes sense.

You know, like you shouldn't do that. It's fair. So there were obviously like civil lawsuits and some settlements, but no criminal charges against anyone. No one convicted about the bomb itself. The person who did go to jail was Ramona, who was the survivor of the bombing. And again, Ramona and Bertie,

they came out of their burned. They didn't come out of their fine. You know, they came out of their, like, definitely injured. Ramona was charged with riot and conspiracy and went to prison for seven years. And then there were obviously other court cases because, like, the neighborhood was destroyed, you know, and they're like, what the hell?

Like, you can't just for a neighborhood. So ultimately, it was found that the police violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the move group, which is the illegal search and seizure because they went like way overboard, obviously bombing the house. Ultimately, Ramona got out of prison and she was awarded a $1.5 million settlement and came, walked away with $500,000. In 1995, so 10 years later, a judge ordered the city to pay $12 million to the people whose houses were destroyed. So that was like distributed amongst the people. And then in 2005, just last year, they issued a formal apology and a day of reflection and remembrance for- In 2025. Yeah, 2025. Yeah. The neighborhood itself, because it's like two blocks that are

totally destroyed, was rebuilt and it was rebuilt in such a terrible way that the houses that were built there were basically unlivable. So whoever was like given the contract, this shitty job. In 1995, again, 10 years later, the Army Corps of Engineers comes in, and it's like most of these buildings aren't up to code. Like, it's just like a terrible neighborhood. So by 2005, so 20 years after the bombing, they just gave up. It said, we cannot fix this neighborhood. We built, we burnt it down. We built all these shitty houses on top of it. And so part of that settlement is they gave everybody who lived there $150,000 to leave. And two-thirds of the people abandoned their house. So now the block, where...

this happened is just like a horrible, condemned crime-ridden area of Philadelphia, which is... I'm looking at pictures. It looks pretty rough. Yeah. So it's pretty bad. I mean, it looks like it got bombed, first of all. Yeah, it looks like it should be condemned. When it happened, and then, like, they just built shitty things over it. So to add insult to injury after this, after this had happened. The bones of the children who were killed in the siege were never offered back to move. Move there's like still around. Just like people again just like doing their thing. Their bones were never given back to them. And in fact, they were given to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. So the bones of 14 year old tree whose name was

Katrina. Actually, that makes sense. Her name was Katrina. They called her tree. Makes more sense. And 12-year-old Delicia Or were used in a class at the University of Pennsylvania called Real Bones Adventures in Forensic Anthropology because they found these children's bones in a box that just had the word move written on it and used it in these classes with like no one's permission. Isn't that awful? It's pretty bad. I think a lot of the bones have been like given back to the organization to be like, you know, does. with in a humane way, but these children were just in a box and then used into class, which is, I don't know,

not great. Gross. Real gross. So that's it. That's a lesser known siege and bombing of an American city by that city. That's wild. You know what I was thinking is I stumbled on this show on A&E called Extreme Squatters or something. Swatters, I can remember what it was called, but you heard of this?

No, but I mean, I know what, like, people who just, like, go to someone's house and just stay there. Yeah, it's apparently, like, really bad in some places. Like, I know in California, there was, like, stories about this happening in Los Angeles where someone would just, like, stay past the lease, and then the owner would take, like, three years and $100,000 to pick them. But there's a service, and A&D follows this service where it's these, like, ex-military guys or something, and they're dressed up and, like, you know, like military or at least security officials, kind of garb. Yeah. And they'll go to the owner and get a lease at themselves added to the lease.

And then they just go into the house where the swatter is and just sit on the couches and living room and just like roast them incessantly and just talk shit and make fun of them until they decide to have enough and leave. It's really fun. That's what you do. That's how you do it. I mean like... That's how you do it. That's how you were telling this. I was like they should have just found one of these guys and sent them in there and just made it so so awkward in there that ever just like left on their own. Exactly. Just like infiltrate. It was. with an energy vampire.

Yes. And everybody's going to move. Yes. That's a good idea. I love that. That is, that's interesting. Yeah, never heard of this organization. Never heard of this group.

Never heard that Philadelphia bombed at some city with a police helicopter, which is really weird. I never knew that was a thing. And now we do. So there we go, militarization. And that was before the police were militarized today, somebody currently are. For real. Like, they didn't have a time. Now they probably have dukes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now every small town has like a tank and a cyber truck that they can bomb you from. So don't worry back. Oh, I saw a cyber truck at the used car lot and I laughed. They are so cheap now. There's people, I mean, when they first came out, there's people paying $200,000 to be one of the first ones to get it.

Those things are worth like maybe $50 grand right now. I know. It's wild. My favorite recent news story has been the Ferrari Luchet reveal. And have you seen this? yet. No. They reveal the first all-electric Ferrari,

and it's just like, it's such a joke. And it's like $640,000. It looks like a pre- like it looks worse than a Prius. It's like incredible. Everybody's just like roasting Ferrari like crazy. Oh my God.

My favorite joke is from Family Guy where Brian drives a Prius. And he goes, I don't want to say I'm a hero for driving a Prius. I just like every time I see it. When you see that picture, you're going to think it's a joke. You're going to think you stumbled on some weird thing that like some 4chan members created.

That is the real car. Oh, I see it. Yeah, yeah. It looks like a regular. Oh, the doors have been cool, though. The doors. That's $640,000 cool. No.

Nothing is $640,000. Well, that was great, Taylor. Thanks for sharing that. And sorry, your friend's name was what again? Julia. Julia, thank you, Julia, for writing in and giving us ideas. That's always really welcome. We use the collective beehive knowledge of our listeners to figure out what topics are out there that we haven't stumbled on ourselves.

So it's very much appreciated. Every once in a while, I'm like, there's no more stories. I have no more ideas. I'm like, yes, sir are. Like, there's so many. It's infinite stories, obviously. But like, you know, sometimes you're like, oh, I've just Google disaster so many times. I keep getting the same thing.

I think the problem is that the lesser known stuff is also the hardest to cover stuff because there's not enough content that you can surface without having to do for your request and spending six months researching things and libraries and easily. You know, like, it's, that's kind of a challenge. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, so, oh, yeah, write to us again, any suggestions you have, commentary at DumafellPod at gmail.com. Find us on all the social at Dumbnafell Pod.

and rate and review us on your listening app if you can. That'll be fantastic. Yeah, please go to wherever you listen, Apple Podcasts or whatever. I just got blood all over my 3D print right now. So I'm cutting this piece off and not's covered in blood. If you have good 3D print ideas, let me know. And yeah, Duneafel, Pat on all the socialists. Thank you.

And yeah, that's my listener mail is, thank you for suggesting that, Julia. I appreciate you. Yeah, awesome. We'll go out and cut off there. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you.