Stuff You Should Know - MOVE: Or When the Philly Police Dropped a Bomb on a Residential Neighborhood

Episode Date: July 23, 2019

Believe it or not, in 1985 the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb from a helicopter onto a residential building in an African-American neighborhood. The fact that this story isn't more widely known says it all. Listen and learn about MOVE today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention, Chicago and Toronto. We're coming to see you guys soon. So we better hurry up and buy your tickets because they're going fast. Yeah, man, Chicago at the Harris Theater, July 24th.

We've actually sold a lot of tickets now. Yeah, you guys listen, thank you. Thanks for stepping up in Toronto at the Danforth Music Hall the next night, July 25th. It may be sold out by now. Yeah, well, there's only one way to find out. Go on to sysklive.com and you'll find links to the ticket sites and all the show info you need,

and we will see you soon. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radios, How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, there's Josh. Gotta get used to this, Chuck. We will eventually, it's the new normal. Yep, and this is Stuff You Should Know.

I can't believe this happened, addition, one of many. One of many, yeah. This sparked off a lot of ideas too. Oh yeah? Yeah. Like how the Phillies work? No, what's up with the Philly Fanatic? That's the green one, right?

Yeah. That's a great character. Sure. So, let's dispense with all that, okay? Yeah, this is gonna be a long one, so let's just jump in. Okay, so back in 1985 and May, Philadelphia Police Department became the first,

and to this point, only police department to drop a bomb on American soil. No police department has ever bombed anything in the history of America, but they did, and they happened to bomb a house that was occupied at the time with 13 people, seven of which were children, and the people in this house were members of an organization called MOVE, MOVE, all caps,

but it's not an acronym. Nope. And they did this because MOVE had made themselves quite a nuisance in the neighborhood, to say the least, and there was basically by this time in May, 1985, a bitter feud between MOVE and the Philadelphia Police Department, and on May 13th, it came to a fiery and tragic end.

It's a nice setup. Thank you. We should have music playing or something. Hopefully Josh will do that, because God knows Jerry's not going to. She's not anywhere, anywhere, knows where she is. So, you wanna go back in time and talk a little bit about MOVE and their origins,

and then go forward in time? I would like to. Isn't that what you said? Okay. So, MOVE is still around. At times over the years, they've been called a cult. They've been called a black liberation movement. Back to Earth.

A terrorist group. Animal rights group. There are all these things to a certain degree here and there, although the leader won Mr. Vincent Leppart, who, everyone, by the way, if you hear us say the name so-and-so Africa, once you become a member of MOVE, you take on the last name of Africa,

which, even though they weren't strictly a group for African-Americans, they had white people early on. And Puerto Ricans, too. They definitely kind of got that rap a little bit more because of the black power movement and the fact that the leader was black, changed his name to Africa,

and asked everyone else to change their last name to Africa. Although not legally, I don't think. No, no, but ultimately it was, well, they wouldn't have done it legally, because that's part of the system. That's right. And the system was one of the things

they were really against. There were basically two prongs to John Africa's philosophy. One was that basically all life is important and equally important. So there was a lot of animal rights stuff. There was a lot of not eating meat ostensibly. Oh, was there vegetarianism in there? There was, although they weren't strict vegetarians.

No, they didn't eat. But yes, but there was animal rights and protection in the sanctity of life. And then the second was that the system, as they called it, was inherently flawed, because everything that was created by humans was flawed. And therefore, not only should not be used, but the whole system should be taken down

and replaced with a much more natural, animalistic philosophy and way of life. Yeah, so that includes electricity. That includes cooking meat. Like these kids ate raw chicken, believe it or not. Yeah, the kids who were raised in the move movement. And this is, this story would make a lot more sense if this was on some deserted island

and someone was moving there to start this utopian society on an island. This is a very interesting story in that it happened in a densely populated area of row houses in West Philadelphia. Born and raised. Where you would... I can't not think of that

whenever I hear West Philadelphia. I thought of it too. It's when you go back and look at the footage, and by the way, there's a great documentary called Let it Burn, Let the Fire Burn, that you should pay for online. I did. That's good.

On Amazon Prime. And, well, I'm a Prime member, so. So am I. Still had to pay to rent it though, because Amazon's part of the system. That's right. Where was I going? You were saying that it would make more sense

on a deserted island than in a densely populated neighborhood in Philadelphia. Yeah, so when you're watching this documentary and there's so much footage, it's crazy to see this house, this row house, set up with farm animals at times in the front yard heavily fenced in. Fortified like a fortress.

Yeah, sometimes people standing outside with guns, even though, as we'll see later, these guns were later found out to be not capable of firing bullets, which means, well, I guess it's still a gun, but it means it's not a weapon. It's a club. Yeah, sort of.

But at the very least, it's just, it's an odd setting for this story. It is, and when you watch that documentary, that house sticks out like a sore thumb. Like this, they had Amish people, probably an hour and a half away from this, doing the same thing out in the middle of the country. Not the exact same thing, but you know what I'm saying.

But you can't get a good cheese steak in Amish country. Much less a good raw one. You can get good stick candy, because they know what they're doing with that stuff. Nice furniture. Butter. Sure. What was it, rum spring out,

where they get to go crazy or whatever and see if they want to live the Amish life? I think that was it. That was a good one. That was a long time ago. But anyway, it's a very interesting setting for this story. It got caught up in, or maybe unfairly pegged as black liberation, like I said, but sort of

because of the time in which it happened, which was in the 70s and early 80s, when the Black Panther Party was in power. There was a former Black Panther that later would join the move movement. Yes, but from what I saw in that documentary, that person was interviewed, and he makes it sound like, rather than bringing the Black Panther ideas to move.

Well, that's why he left, yeah. He took on moves ideals rather than discarded the Black Panther's ideas. Yeah, I think he was disillusioned with the Black Panthers because of the violence. And it should be pointed out that Africa's whole thing was, his whole thing was non-violence, but it wasn't like that was at the forefront

of his everyday talkings, because they very aggressively and very obscenely blasted their message through these loudspeakers attached to this row house, which was a real problem in this neighborhood for everyone, this Black neighborhood. They didn't want them there either. No, that's it. Don't drop a bonum, which is what one of them

being interviewed very clearly was like, we didn't want this to happen, but they were a threat to our well-being here in the neighborhood. Yeah, and they were also deliberately provocative. They purposefully made a nuisance out of themselves because part of moves philosophy was waking everybody else up and doing it in a really aggressive, hostile-

Agitation. Threatening way. Supposedly some neighbors reported that they were directly threatened by this group, which is a big problem too. I mean, that's definitely a couple steps up from agitating or aggravating people. Threatening them is different.

Sure, but at the very least, imagine being a neighbor who has lived in this house for 20 years and all of a sudden there's this organization living there and at three in the morning, it's just blasting out these MFers that are in charge or F in this and F in that. And I felt sorry for these citizens. Oh, yes.

There's a lot of empathy to be dispersed among many parts of this story. Yes, but the story also, basically this story has two types of people in it. Villains and innocents. Yeah, sure. There's virtually, there's one hero that you can point to and he doesn't even appear in this article.

He was in the documentary, which we'll talk about him for a minute later, but it's mostly just people, the adults acting badly and the children or the people in the neighborhood who are innocent bystanders or pawns in this whole thing. Victims, for sure. Because when you're talking about blaring your philosophy in a very hostile foul-mouthed way,

if you see the pictures of the house, those loudspeakers that they have at stock car races or whatever, that's what they had posted out on the house. It wasn't just some guy with a bullhorn or that walkie-talkie thing that Homer Simpson had at the yard sale episode. Now you can hear this along the whole block in every direction.

Yes, and if you were anywhere near them, if your house was next door or even a couple doors down, you heard them night and day and that was a real problem. Yeah, so we should back up a little bit and give a little bit of the background here. Before the 1980s happened and they move into the second house on Osage Avenue, 6221, they lived at a different house in the late 70s and there was a different mayor

in Philadelphia at this time, Mayor Rizzo, who was a... Scumbag. Tough talking, like... Scumbag. Yeah. He was a scumbag, I'm just gonna say it. He was.

I saw archival footage of the man and he was a strong man, scumbag. Yeah, he was one of these guys and we'll see what happened here, he was not in charge anymore, but it was remnants from that attitude, basically, that he laid down in the city, which is like... He was in charge in 78, though. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm talking about the bombing.

So in 78, there was a standoff with the police. We had talked about the guns earlier. It was later found out that these guns weren't capable of firing. They didn't know that at the time, but at the very least, the cops overreacted at the declaration of Mayor Rizzo and there was a shooting.

There was an officer that was shot and killed and it was just a really bad scene. So even just a little bit before that, too, there was a confrontation between MOVE and the Philadelphia police, where one of the MOVE members' babies, like a two-month-old, died. Yeah, you know.

And the MOVE members said, the cops did this, like this baby died from this confrontation with the police. So that kicks that off. The police eventually raided the MOVE house in 1978 and one of the officers gets shot and killed in this raid. And so you've got some real bad blood brewing between these two groups. Yeah, and during that raid,

Delbert, Africa, one of the members was, and you can see the footage of this, it was all captured on camera, just beaten on the street while laying on the sidewalk by these cops. While he was surrendering. Yeah, so to say that there was bad blood is sort of an understatement.

It was, you had on one side a, what you could at least define as a public nuisance in this neighborhood. You had on this other side these, the zealous mayor who just wanted to get rid of them, period. Not like, let's meet and let's talk, let's see if we can all work together. They were 100,000% at odds with one another.

Right, so the police officer that died, the MOVE side said, we didn't shoot that guy. It was friendly fire that got him. Right. The Philadelphia police department didn't agree with that story. And so on like a personal level, like not just an organizational level,

but to a cop, the cops hated MOVE. And these people just continued on in Philadelphia and actually stepped up there making themselves a public nuisance because nine of their members were arrested for the murder of that police officer. And convicted. Yes, and sent to jail for decades.

Yeah, 30 to 100 years is what they're each sentence for. We'll talk about what happened to them toward the end. So just to kind of like, just paint this one last stroke on this picture we're painting here. The cops had a vendetta against MOVE because one of their own was killed during the siege. And MOVE had a vendetta against the cops

because nine of their people were put in jail. One of them was beaten and a baby had died on their side. Okay. All right, let's take a break and we'll come back right after this and talk more about what happened in 1985. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lasher

and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back to the days of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bringing you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

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So whether or not this was a cult is some people debate that John Africa is very much on record saying it's an organization. Is that relevant? I don't think so. I don't either. I think it's just an attempt to discredit them. Oh, to call them a cult?

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's all we're talking about though. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not like criticizing you or anything like that. I'm just saying like when people toss it around, like, oh, they were a cult. Yeah, there were some like characteristics that you could say, well, it's kind of cult-like or whatever.

Let's put it this way, if it was on a deserted island, then I think people would have straight up called them a cult. The fact that it was in a neighborhood in West Philadelphia made it seem a lot less so. I hear you. But if he was like, come here and live on this island with me. Right. Then it would have straight up been called a cult.

Let me rephrase what I was saying. I don't dispute that they may have been a cult. But again, it's that, well, does that mean that they should have had a bomb dropped on them? I don't think anyone thinks that. Okay. So like I said, there were kids there that were forced to eat raw fish, raw chicken.

The adults could cook their meat, which was, there were definitely some double standards going on there. Their rationale was that our bodies are used to this, but we want to raise you pure from the start, so you're only going to eat raw foods. Yeah, they had a lot of exceptions, not just that. Like the anti-technology thing where they had like a wood burning stove for heat,

and that was it. No, they used candles instead of light bulbs, that kind of stuff. But they also had phones and they drove cars. So there was a lot of weird exceptions and loopholes and holes in general in John Africa's guidelines, as he called them. Yeah, as for one of the more,

well, the only child that survived this experience, Birdie Africa, Michael Ward. He said in 1995, I'm still afraid of them, of moves. Some of the things that went on there, I can't get out of my head. Bad things I haven't told anyone except for my father. But I'll tell you this, I didn't like being there. They said it was a family, but a family isn't something

where you're forced to stay and you don't want to. And his contention was that the kids were always trying to get out of there and run away. They were just too little to know how. Too little and naked. They were naked, they were malnourished. They were like the only toys they had, they had to hide because they weren't supposed to have them

because that's technology and human made. It was unsanitary. Yeah, part of what Move was into was growing their own food. So they would compost in the alley behind the house or on the roof or something like that. They built an animal shelter in the alley. So there was a lot of really

not okay conditions to raise kids in, let alone adults to live in, but raising children. There were some really bad decisions and choices or bad outcomes from some of John Africa's philosophy. Yeah, it's weird because it's like, at the heart of this, it's this back to nature movement. You want them to be on a deserted island so bad. Not even a deserted island.

Like go out and there's countryside, not too far outside of Philadelphia. It is a little weird. It's very strange because on one hand, I'm like, yeah, this animal rights group and they're back to nature and they're issuing the things of man, but they're doing it in the most like aggressive

antagonistic way possible in the middle of the city. It's like, I didn't know what to think about any of this, except obviously you don't go in there and fire bomb the place. That's like the one thing I was clear on. You don't start a war in the middle of a neighborhood. Right, it's true. Which is what happened basically.

The neighbors wanted Move out. They filed a bunch of complaints over the years to get them shut down. And the city didn't really know what to do at this point. At this point, there was a different mayor, Mayor Good, so this was the first black mayor of Philadelphia. Who actually was elected on this reform ticket basically to get rid of Rizzo, get rid of the corruption,

the racism that Rizzo and his administration had fostered. Cause he was police chief first and then became mayor. Who Good was or Rizzo? No, Rizzo. And he basically, after that 1978 raid, there's footage of him just basically hopped up and boasting about how militarized the Chicago PD was now. And how like they could, I think he actually said,

He said we're ready for war. Yeah, we could go down to Cuba and take them if we wanted to right now. Just really like boasting about this. Not like, oh man, you know, this was a tragedy or whatever. Even if, however you want to say it, like he was boasting like, come on, who's next kind of thing. And this was the mayor at the time.

So Wilson Good comes along and is like, not that. We're going to take a different tact here and try to promote more unity. And he was actually pretty successful in a lot of ways in that respect. As far as the city officials go, I really kind of like Mayor Good. Cause he took responsibility for it.

Yeah. Even stuff he didn't do, just because he was the mayor, he put himself in as accountable. All right. So should we fast forward? Yes. The stage is set. We know what happened in the seventies.

We know the relationship between this neighborhood with this group and this group with the city and the cops. And so they decide that they're going to extract every person from that house. That was the plan as we are going to remove the move organization from the house on Osage Avenue. In this article it says they didn't have a plan. That's not true.

They had a plan that just was not executed well and went really pear shaped, really fast. And then they didn't have a plan. But the original plan was to, they had built the move organization that built this pretty fortified bunker on top of their building. As far as homemade bunkers go, not bad.

Which gave them a supreme tactical advantage. If you know anything about war, higher ground is always going to win out. Sure. Or not always. Or if you're designed to castle or something, you know. Sure. Castle designers.

Right. They know. Or mongers. So the idea was to create a diversion on the roof in which time police officers or SWAT and everybody would go inside and forcibly remove people by any means necessary in Mayor Good's words. But the first part of that was water cannons and tear gas.

You're right. And they were very surprised when these water cannons that were just, I think they shot like 1,000 gallons, a second or some crazy amount of water. They just left them on. Yes, two of them shoot like, and they fully expected to basically take most of this house down. Like it was a brick row home,

but they expected it to take the non brick parts off, including that structure on top that look out. And they were very, very surprised when two things didn't happen. When that structuring come down despite the water cannons being directed at it for hours, and the people not coming out despite tear gas being shot into the house.

Right. And that is, like you said earlier, when their plan went to the birds. Yeah. Toilet? Sure. Went down the toilet and they said, well, what do we do now?

Like our whole plan doesn't work. I've got an idea. Let's start shooting at the house instead. Yeah, so what they didn't know this whole time was that they were all hiding in a basement garage. So all of this water raining down on the roof wasn't, I don't, probably wouldn't even getting to them. Probably not.

Or maybe it's not like they were up to their necks and water in the basement and like drowning or anything like that. No, but they later said that the tear gas was everywhere. Sure. But apparently it wasn't potent enough. Yeah. Maybe they used expired stuff.

And we should step it back one step, Chuck. Before this raid actually started, they went house to house to the neighbors and said, you guys grab all your clothes. That's huge. We need you gone for 24 hours. Yeah. Because we're about to do what you guys have wanted us

to do for years. Yeah. We're gonna do it. So you need to get out here. They towed trucks from Osage Avenue. Oh, they towed every car. Yep. They had the gas shut off,

the electricity shut off. There was a siege. Yeah. They basically tried to just vacate the block. Yeah. And they did. Yeah, and they did. I mean, I think some people stayed when they shouldn't have,

but it's like with any evacuation, they got as many people out of there as possible. Right. They're like, you'll be back in your house tomorrow. Okay. So the whole block and like a couple of blocks, a couple of streets on either side are cleared. Yeah.

The water's been used. It's not working. The tear gas is not working. So supposedly the first shots came from the house. Right. But everybody, all witnesses, cops, firefighters, news people say that the first shots were automatic fire. Right.

It's been conclusively proven that no one in the move house had an automatic weapon. So if the first shots were automatic, then that means the cops fired first. And that's what people seem to believe is that the cops started this. Yeah. This documentary, it's really compelling

because it's footage from the commission afterward. And you get like the real deal testimony, first person testimony from all the major players, including the police chief. What was his name? Gregory Sambor. Yeah, Sambor who was, he identified it as automatic,

like his sworn testimony. He said it was automatic weapons. And they were like, well, how do you know? And he was like, I know what an automatic weapon sounds like. Right. And they were like, well, what move didn't have automatic weapons? He's like, oh, I don't know about that.

Yeah, he's like, I don't know how to explain that then. But they fired first, he just kind of stuck to his guns every single time. Yeah, he was a piece of work himself. He was definitely in the cut from the same cloth as Mayor Rizzo. I think so. So they decided to start shooting at this point

because regardless of who shot first, it becomes like Vietnam on the city block all of a sudden. And it's not like, I mean, they cleared it out, but when you see this news footage, I mean, there's people everywhere. Sure. They're shooting their news cameras and anchors everywhere on the streets.

Like, oh, like we should get behind the car now because it's raining bullets everywhere. Yeah. It's just freaky to see this happening on like a city block in the United States. Yeah, the cops later on estimated that they fired about 10,000 rounds. They ran out of bullets.

Yeah, they had to bring in more because they ran out of bullets. Yeah. This car pulls up and you're like a car, a police car is just rushed into the scene. And it's like from a movie, the trunk pops and it's just full of bullets. Yeah, just because they ran out of bullets.

Yeah. So they kept shooting at this house. And here's the thing, like bear in mind, they're shooting 10,000 rounds of ammunition at a house occupied by 13 people, seven of which are children. Everyone knows. Oh, yeah. Everyone knows that there were seven children in that house.

Yeah, it's not like the cops were unaware. No, everyone knew that there were children in this house. It was part of it. It was part of the concern of the neighbors that there were children being raised in this house. And the cops acted on the information from confidential informants who fully informed them that there were children in this house.

So that's step one. They fired 10,000 rounds at a house where they knew that there were seven children. All right, so nothing is changing though. They're still not bringing people out of this house. I'll bet they were like, I can't believe this. And that structure was still intact on top. I'm surprised they didn't think they were dead.

I would have thought at some point they would have been like, well, I'm sure we probably killed everyone. Let's just go in there. Yeah, I wonder because if they were all crowded down in the basement garage, they couldn't have been firing back after a certain point in time. Yeah, I'm not sure.

I mean, they said part of the problem was the tear gas. So they couldn't send cops in there because it was flooded with tear gas. And then I think they said this comes later, the steam. So put a pin in the steam. So at some point, someone on the bomb squad apparently says to the police chief or it gets to the police chief, hey, the chief was really worried about that bunker

and that tactical advantage. So someone from the bomb squad said, why don't we drop a bomb on the roof and get rid of that bunker? An officer named William Klein suggested that. And they said, OK. Let's do that. Good idea, Klein. What do we need?

A helicopter and a bomb. They're like, well, we've got both. So even as late as the inquiry that they held, they characterized it as a Tovex bomb. And Tovex is a water-based gelatinous explosive that is used, I think, in mining and demolition and stuff like that. But it can be purchased.

Yes, yeah. It later came out that in addition to the Tovex, the bomb disposal guy made a bomb with C4, plastic explosives, which is not commercially available, which means that we'll see later, the Philadelphia Police Department should not have had this stuff. Yeah, we should just go ahead and say how they got it. Why not?

Well, I was trying to save it with a little flare for the dramatic, but you go ahead. Well, the FBI gave it to them. Secretly. Yeah, the FBI had been giving little bits of C4 here and there to police departments, apparently, to blow doors off of stuff. To train bomb-sniffing dogs.

Yeah, teach them how to use it. But then the FBI used that excuse for a little while, then later came out and said, no, we actually brought them a bunch of C4. Like 30 blocks of C4 in January, a few months before this raid, the siege, but still during the time when the move people were being negotiated with to leave on their own.

Yeah, because that was happening this whole time. They would have community leaders on the bullhorn trying to talk them into coming out. They did not have a professional negotiator on the scene. No. That's a huge red flag. Yeah, that they never meant for anyone to come out. Yeah.

But at any rate, they drop a bomb. I think they said a four-pound bomb from a satchel with a 45-second fuse. This is all on camera. Like you literally, in this documentary, see the helicopter fly over, drop the satchel out of it. And go, ee-ee. Yeah, fly.

I love that you did the running motion in a helicopter's run. Sure. And they flew out of there and kaboom. In West Philadelphia, a bomb explodes on top of a building and a smallish fire starts. This is it, what time? There was like five that they dropped the bomb, five, 10, I think.

All right. And the smallish fire took a couple of minutes for it to become apparent that it had caught fire. But supposedly, there was gasoline in the, what are we calling that thing? The bunker. The bunker. Yeah.

There's supposedly gasoline in the bunker. But I really, the police dropped a bomb on a building that they knew that people were in, seven of which were children. And supposedly, the reason that they did this was to get rid of that bunker. Like that bunker, the police chief did not like that bunker standing still and wanted to get rid of it.

The bomb didn't do anything to the bunker. That was a strong bunker. It was. The timeline is important. So at 527 is when they dropped the bomb. At 545, someone asked the fire department if they should turn on the, they've been delusional this thing with water all day long

until there's a fire. And then they turn it off. Which was, it's not ironic because it was very purposeful. But it definitely stings more. So they said not to turn them on by 6 o'clock. So this is 33 minutes later. Mayor Goode is watching this on TV in his office. He phones it in and says, let's put this fire out now.

He ordered the fire to be put out. Yeah, 33 minutes later. And this is where it gets a little hinky because this was given to police chief Sambor. And under testimony, Sambor says that he relayed that to the fire chief. He said that the fire chief was there. He did not say he related to the fire chief.

Yeah, I mean, he got very dodgy with how he worded it. Very. But the fire chief basically on testimony said, that's what he said. And he was like, I categorically denied that I ever got an order to start those water cannons. Or that he was even aware that Goode made that call, a phone call, or called the order.

So basically, the fire chief said, the buck stopped with Sambor. And Sambor, the police chief, decided to let that fire burn. That's right. Because he thought, not defending him, but he thought the fire would then take down the bunker and remove that advantage.

Other people contend, and they ask him in the deposition or in the hearing, no, you've kind of really wanted to use the fire as a weapon. He got real salty about that. He did. He said, a fire can't be a weapon, basically. He said, fire is fire. And no one said, what about flamethrowers?

He goes, I hadn't thought about flamethrowers, but still. All right, so this is 630. Flamethrower is clearly out of hand. They waited way too long. That was the thing that got me was, it was obvious from what Sambor was saying. If the documentary is accurate, from what Sambor was saying, when he was saying, no, we need to let the bunker burn still.

By this time, the entire top floor was a conflagration. Yeah, I mean, it's on the news. So that whole thing doesn't hold water at all. And it would lend support to the idea that he was using it as a weapon to burn the people out. I'm sure he was. I'm sure he thought, to your guess, didn't work. Maybe this fire will work and drive these people out of there.

OK. All right, should we take a break or should we wait? No, let's take a break. OK, we'll take a break and we'll tell you what happens next. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you.

Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen

crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye,

bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. OK, Chuck. So for a little bit, the fire department sprays some of the houses next to the move house, but doesn't put the fire out or spray the fire on the move house.

So in the abandoned houses, they're spraying down to try to contain the fire. And the house, the one house in this whole square block area, where they know people are, including seven children, they didn't spray. Later on, they will defend this by saying, well, in that 1978 siege, move fired on the firefighters and apparently shot and injured several firefighters.

So we were worried for the firefighters to be picked off fighting this fire in this siege as well. Ramona Africa, who would be the one adult from move to survive this siege, would say, well, like you said earlier, they weren't scared to hit us with these water cannons the whole time there wasn't a fire. But then there is a fire and now they're scared we're going to pick them off.

That doesn't make any sense as just be yes. Yeah, and also, I'm glad you brought that up because it said to put a pin in the steam. This is when the steam happened because they're blowing water on this fire now and it's creating all the steam that they said didn't allow anyone to move in as well. Because they couldn't see anything.

It was no visibility. OK, so despite spraying down the houses around this fire, it got out of hand really fast and it spread very fast. And it moved very quickly not just from the move house but onto the neighboring houses and then beyond. And even these are fairly narrow streets that this neighborhood was built on. And it jumped the street fairly quickly.

Yeah, it wasn't contained or deemed under control until 1141 PM. So it's like more than six hours after it started. Yeah, this whole city block is just burning to the ground. It ended up being like a six alarm fire, which, depending on the city, is 120 firefighters, chiefs, ladder trucks. It's a big old fire.

Yeah, so you mentioned the 1978 siege where the officer was shot and killed and where the beating of Delbert Africa went down. Important to remember that because two of the officers that were involved in the beatdown of Delbert Africa were also on the scene today. And they make a big point in this commission like, did you think about sending these guys in there?

Might not be a good idea. And they may have revenge on their minds. And I can't remember what the answer was. He's kind of like. He said, no, I didn't think of that. Or yes, I did. Whatever it was, he was not like, yeah, that was not a good idea.

He stood by whatever it was. Right, so this kind of sets up another story in tandem that's going on right now, which is at a certain point during this mass of fire. About seven. Yeah, they try to get out from the basement. The move people tried to get out, they tried to escape. That's right.

They try to get out the back door. There's this, at this point, the cops had moved into the alleyway. There was no camera access, so you couldn't see what happened. But from the testimony that can't even hardly get through the testimony of that kid, they deposed him. He wasn't in front of the commission. Birdie Africa?

Yeah, but Birdie Africa was like, what, he looked like 10 or 11 years old when they deposed him. Yeah, but he was actually like 13. Was he? Mm-hmm. But this kid is retelling this story, seems incredibly credible and believable to me.

Right. Like, I fully believe that he was telling the truth. Over the two cops who are supposedly, who may or may not, who may have actually fired on the people trying to escape the house. Right. Of the two, it's way easier to believe that kid's testimony than these guys.

Right. Who were the ones who beat Delbert Africa in 1978. Yeah, so that's what happened. And they tried to leave, there was a kid named Rad Africa that was, I think like 13 or 14, and he was carrying out a baby, and he was one of the first ones out, and he goes back into the house.

And there's that part of the documentary where the priest is talking to the officers, and he's like, because officers are saying, all we were saying was come out with your hands up. Right, we didn't fire on anybody. Like, we didn't fire, we said come out with your hands up, and this priest is like, I'm trying to think of what would make a kid holding a baby

go back into a building engulfed in flames. And the cops are like, I don't know. Yeah, you can't really put yourself in a moved person's feet. Right. You can't really identify with them. And that minister or whatever said, actually I was friends with a lot of these people,

and I knew them on a human level. Right. The other thing that really kind of damns the two cops who beat Delbert Africa's testimony, is that there was reports from a lot of witnesses, including like fire department people, from gunfire in this alley around this time. So the whole thing kind of adds up,

if you take those, the reports of witnesses that there was gunfire in the back alley, with Birdie Africa and Ramona Africa's testimony that around that same time, people had tried to escape. And then the testimony of the cops themselves that the people had run back in the house. Right. It sounds a lot like a reasonable person would conclude

that the cops who had beaten Delbert Africa in 1978 shot at the people from move in 1985 who tried to escape the fire and forced them back into the burning house. Right. 100%. That's certainly what it sounds like. They, the cop said that the kid had,

he said he was a man, he was a kid, had a rifle that he pointed at them. And like, I know what a rifle looks like because the kid who survived, Birdie said he had a monkey wrench in his hand that he used to get the window open. He came out with a monkey wrench in that baby. And the cop was like,

I can tell the difference between a rifle and a monkey wrench. Yeah. And if you're sitting here like, hey lay off the cops, just watch this documentary and then listen to this part over again. Because it's a really great documentary it does a really good job of like laying everything out. But part of the, I guess the goodness of this documentary

is that it's all archival and it lets the people speak for themselves. Oh yeah, it's just, you basically kind of watch what happened and listen to what people said about it. Right. You know, including the people in charge. And it's obviously, I mean, it's edited.

It's not just like, here's this inquiry, here's my documentary. But I mean, it lets it pay out enough that you get a really good clear picture of what happened in the testimony that followed. So, I mean, that's kind of the end of that story as it happened that, you know, these Ramona and Birdie were the only two

to make it out of that house alive. And the hero I mentioned earlier, cop, man, I wish I could remember his name. I got his name. He could not stop himself from running to Birdie to help him. Yeah, officer James Burghauer. So, Burghauer ran to them, despite some of his colleagues saying,

don't, I think it's a trap, you're gonna get killed. He said, I can't, I see this kid right there and I'm going to go rescue him. He thought of his kids, he said. He did. And he was, they even say like in the inquiry, like if there's any silver lining or shining moment to this whole horrible thing, it's what you did.

And he got kind of rusted out of the police department within a year or two. Oh yeah, his own police brethren turned on him. They wrote racial epithets on his locker because he saved this kid. It was diagnosed with PTSD and left the forest two years later and there's a great article I found that I read the first third of right before we had to record

that of him, an interview with him, I guess like five or six years ago. That I can't wait to go read and finish up. So let's finish up. Okay, so Bertie and Ramona were the only two move members who survived. The other 11 died, including six children. Yeah.

In this house that was set on fire and the fire was set off by a bomb that the Philadelphia police department dropped on the house. So obviously, Philadelphia's gonna cough up some money for this. Yeah, there were settlements. The parents of the dead children settled

for $25 million total. Michael Ward, young Bertie, he became Michael Ward. He changed his name. He got $1.7 million. Ramona Africa got half a million dollars and the families of John Africa and his nephew, they couldn't reach a settlement. So they were awarded one million by a jury.

And then here's the kicker. Police Chief Sambore and Fire Chief Richmond were forced to pay $1 a week for 11 years to Ramona Africa. To keep it in mind. Yeah, $572. Which is a civil, I mean, that's a civil punishment, basically saying we think you're,

like you might not be criminally responsible, but in the civil suit, we are saying, it's basically like how the- A symbolic payment or whatever. Yeah, it's like how the court, the civil court, ruled against O.J., even though he had been found not guilty of murder. And the criminal.

The civil court still said, no, you're responsible, we believe, so we're gonna get you in this way. They did the same thing. And this was despite the fact that Ramona Africa did seven years. Like they didn't say, hey, we're really sorry, we burned this house.

Right, she went to prison. Here's some money. They said, hey, you're under arrest for inciting a riot and conspiracy of something or other. And she did seven years. She didn't get out early because the parole board said, you have to denounce move. And she refused to denounce move

and she did her full seven years. Although now she is not affiliated with move any longer as far as I know. Yeah, as far as the original move nine, who are the ones in prison for the killing of the police officer, two of them died in prison. I think two are still in prison.

The rest, including just in February, February 12th, Eddie Africa was paroled. Delbert and Chuck Africa are still behind bars. I think are the only two still behind bars. And as far as Michael Ward, aka young birdie Africa, he very sadly died in 2013 in a hot tub cruise ship drowning due to intoxication. Intoxication. Yeah, the Brevard County,

Florida medical examiner ruled that accidental death from drowning in a hot tub from just being drunk, I guess. What a weird way to go after all that weird life. Yeah, he, it's weird because during the deposition, he was there with his father and I'm like, where was his dad? His dad was looking for him.

Well, his dad was out of the country in the military while he was living in Philadelphia. Right, but he had moved to suburban Philadelphia. His dad did and had been looking for Michael and had no idea he was 30 minutes away in Philly. Yeah, so he lived the rest of his life with his dad and that's who he referenced earlier when he was like, the stuff that went on there,

I'll only tell my father, super, super tragic. And it's one of these things, I think, like we should do a little triumvirate of this in Ruby Ridge in Waco, maybe. Agreed. Like three times where there was a potentially problematic organization and the United States government just decided to fire bomb it. Yeah, these are so sticky because you wanna be like,

oh, these people are the victims and the government really was a villain in this one but you're like, it's never that complex and these stories really teach you that. It's always that complex. Things are much more textured than that. They're much more nuanced than that black and white. But even still.

You still don't drop a bomb. You don't drop a bomb and burn 11 people to death. Yeah, the city as far as that block went, they paid $11 million, which was by all accounts a very inside deal with some developer who put up a bunch of houses that were condemned in 2000 due to shoddy construction. So somebody got rich, again,

trying to build these things did a terrible job. 24 family stayed, they offered repairs and buyouts and apparently most people took the buyouts. And if you do like the little Google Earth, the 6221 Osage, it's still row houses and on either side of that, it looks like people might be living there but that building has like, you know, plywood up in the windows.

Oh, really? Cause I heard like starting in about 2015, they brought in a good developer and started to redevelop it and then starting to come back. Well, it's interesting that one address though is boarded up, so I don't know if like no one wants to live there. Or it could be an older Google image.

Yeah, those are usually newer, right? I wonder, well, I mean, it could be older than 2015. Although I looked at my house the other day and it was the old house. The old house? Yeah, I was kind of like, no. That's cute. It looked credier than I thought.

No, you got a good house. I got to see your new version. Yeah, you should. The fancy version, I'm just waiting for an invite. Come on over. Oh, thanks. I can't. Uh, if you want to know more about the move bombing,

please, please, we both beseech you, go watch Let the Fire Burn on Amazon Prime, on the internet, wherever you can see it, just see it, it's really, really good. Yeah, and we should point out too that no one involved on the cops and the political side suffered any. Oh yeah, punishments.

No, there was that inquiry and no one was found guilty of any wrongdoing, except, although this will put a really good button on, this multiracial panel, inquiry panel, that held these hearings, to a person with one dissenter said that we conclude had this not been a black working class neighborhood, but instead a white working class neighborhood,

the police never would have dropped that bomb. Of course they wouldn't have. Yeah. Okay, it's time for listening now. Who is the lone dissenter? I didn't see. It's gotta be the guy with the glasses. It's always that guy.

What am I gonna call this? Perfect pitch follow up. Whoa. Hey guys, back in 2009, my band was recording an album and there was one song that ends with us all singing and holding out a single note. The next song starts with us singing that same note.

Oh, that's cool. See what they did? Adding drums, then the songs are edited together to have them flow into each other with no gap. Josh T is very interested, because he's a musician. Jerry just be like, what? I'm eating me so, huh? What'd you guys say?

We had finished recording that first one and I can tell by the look on Josh's face. He's like, no, that old trick. Packed our instruments away, then we're about to start the next one. We realized we need to hear the first note so we could sing in the right pitch instead of loading up the previous song.

Our pianist said, I have perfect pitch and belted out the note, which we all who don't have perfect pitch trusted him to be right and started recording from there. A little did we know, he doesn't have perfect pitch, but is close. When we edited the songs together

and played them through the notes we're supposed to match, we're off by about a half step. Now it sounds like a Jerry edit. Very dissonant, totally wrong. Oh, I just realized Jerry's gonna hear this when she edits this episode. That's right, just put a Wilhelm scream in there, Jerry. I'll be all right.

We were already out of the studio at that point so we ended up just releasing it and claiming the dissonance was intentional. But we never let them off the hook with the old, oh yeah, you got perfect pitch, do you? Thanks so much for all the hard work guys have learned so much, been endlessly entertained for years,

signed, spanked, and sent. That is from Kenny. Thank you, Kenny. We appreciate that. That was a pretty great email. It would be literally LOL. I can only assume it's Kenny Rogers. I also wanna say this,

we give Jerry a hard time around here it's stuff you should know. Well, only when she's not here. Imagine, right. Actually, that's not true. We do it while she's sitting right there too. I can't imagine stuff you should know without her. Yeah.

We love our Jerry and she is perfect exactly the way she is. We call that a nice save. All right. Well, if you wanna get in touch with us you can go on to stuffyshouldknow.com and check out our social links and you can also send us an email

to stuffpodcast.ihartradio.com. Stuffyshouldknow is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called,

David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say, bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.