Count me as being Today Years Old when I learned about this. I had no clue.
posted by Kitteh at 11:41 AM on May 13 [4 favorites]

I knew about this at the time, it was all over the news, but I did live about 60-70 miles away. Absolutely horrible and a disgraceful use of police power, maybe more shocking because it happened in a northern city.
posted by billsaysthis at 11:46 AM on May 13 [6 favorites]

If I weren't mad enough remembering the bombing - it gets worse - even just at the Wiki level.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:53 AM on May 13 [11 favorites]

I remembering hearing about this sometimes in the early 90s from the anarcho-squatters I knew here in NYC.
posted by Liquidwolf at 11:56 AM on May 13 [2 favorites]

I'm glad the second item leads with the aerial shot of three blocks worth of tightly packed rowhouses obliterated, which is the image that has stuck in my mind the longest from this travesty.

This 2019 Vox article on it is also worth reading.
posted by reedbird_hill at 11:56 AM on May 13 [11 favorites]

Yeah, but it was uppity Black people who got offed, not white guys! The presumption is, they had it coming!

I too am old enough to remember this from the headlines of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which was one of my daily papers at the time. Which was a time when one might subscribe to multiple daily papers, as impossible as that might seem to credit, today. Somehow I found 2hr daily to look at them.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:04 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]

Also, it was local cops and not Feds.

I think everybody knows that civilians don't have control of the police departments of major metro areas: they are laws utterly unto themselves, and if they want to murder a whole shitload of people there's not a lot anybody can do about it. Whereas Feds, there are mechanisms to hold them (somewhat more) accountable. At least when there's a D President.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:07 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

The Feds gave the bomb to the local cops, though.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:27 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]

Janet Monge was a professor I had briefly (never a full semester class) and when I heard about the bone debacle, I can't say I was that surprised. Not out of bias but obliviousness, initially, because she was the kind of person who labs made rules about after she left, and once told us that she got scurvy because she forgot to eat anything but Snickers for 6 months. It's no excuse after Penn was made aware of the situation.

This, and things like the role of the Black Panthers in social programs are vastly neglected in American historical narratives.
posted by cobaltnine at 12:38 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]

Everyone needs to watch Let the Fire Burn
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:38 PM on May 13 [6 favorites]

I remember this from when it went down. It's not really brought up for a lot of reasons. It was the local police, and not the Feds. They weren't just Black people, but also a weird cult. And the fact that it was a bombing. I'm not sure how much state sponsored bombings we have in the US, but it can't be a lot.
Also, it didn't make the news because the Philadelphia Police Department bombed a house, It made the news because they destroyed 60-odd homes over a two block area. If they'd "just" killed 11 people it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much coverage.
posted by Spike Glee at 12:42 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]

I’m petty sure the only time I every hear about this bombing is when it appears on Metafilter every five years (2025, 2020, 2015)…which is a shame as it’s a quite the piece of history and a hell of a story.

Previously
https://www.metafilter.com/186977/I-communicated-that-I-would-like-to-let-the-fire-burn

https://www.metafilter.com/149616/30-years-ago-the-only-police-aerial-bombing-on-US-soil-left-11-people-dead
posted by inflatablekiwi at 12:51 PM on May 13 [10 favorites]

Such an insane story. The only survivor got 7 years in prison and no one from the city government was criminally charged. Qualified immunity, baby!
posted by gottabefunky at 12:58 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]

I first heard of this reading
Philadelphia Fire
Book by John Edgar Wideman

recommended.
posted by djseafood at 1:03 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]

The CBC radio broadcast a series about this in 2023. All episodes are available online, and worth a listen.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:04 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]

As a young adult I took a bus from NYC to Philadelphia to visit family, c. 1997, and I had the distinct thought as the bus wound its way through the city that it was like it had been firebombed.

I was in my early 20s and had not lived in the US yet, and was absolutely unsophisticated about US-specific histories of racism, and did not learn about MOVE during that trip. But when I did learn that history, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I wondered whether the Greyhound route into town went through this particular neighborhood, and whether the blight of the bombing persisted that long.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 1:16 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]

I don't remember hearing about this at the time (ironically, my freshman year roommate in 1985 was from Philly, and I don't recall him ever mentioning it), but it's been "common knowledge" and mentioned regularly to varying degrees of detail by lefty radio/interview shows and magazines for decades. (See also: the assassination of Fred Hampton, before Black Messiah was released.)
posted by Pedantzilla at 1:17 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]

I heard about this as it happened. I was a few states away and 18 years old.

Awful.
posted by doctornemo at 1:20 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

I was a preteen in the Midwest, and I remember hearing about this on the evening TV news.

I recall the tone as a shocked "Can you believe that the cops did this crazy shit to some radicals (and also three city blocks of the radicals' neighbors) who, I guess, were armed? The cops used a bomb that they dropped from a helicopter!"

I, of course, had no context for this.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:30 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]

came here to say “watch Let The Fire Burn” and saw it’s been said. saying it again for emphasis!!
posted by crime online at 1:31 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]

I was at Penn in those days and lived off campus on 44th and Sansom in a row home. On warm spring days we would catch rays on the roof. This particular day was very memorable because, without knowing the details, we watched it all unfold and watched the block(s) burn. Well before the internet or cell phones it was just a crazy surreal load of police, helicopter and fire activity close in enough to be riveting without feeling in danger. Of course it was horrifying to learn what had happened in the days that followed, but in the moment it was certainly a spectacle.
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:35 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]

Later that year the same Philadelphia PD would be begged by the mother of an intellectually disabled African American occasionally unhoused woman to check the house of a white, Rolls Royce driving street preacher and self proclaimed "Bishop" in whose company she had last been scene. Police would make a cursory welfare check at the home, but decided after meeting with the Bishop there was nothing to the story. Months later another black woman would show up in a precinct half naked and disheveled displaying scars from being chained for months in the Bishop's basement only to be disbelieved again. After begging them to act, the police finally entered Bishop Heidnik's home to discover one of the most gruesome crime scenes in American history.

Not a great time for Philadelphia PD's constituent services to the African American community for sure.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:35 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]

I'm surprised that the Moors haven't made this into one of their rallying points. (Or have they?)

Fun fact: Live Aid was held in Philadelphia at John F. Kennedy Stadium two months later. According to his autobiography Is That It?, Bob was wary about holding it there (for both Philadelphia's lack of World Significance and possible craziness signified by the MOVE incident) but relented after they still couldn't lock down a New York venue by deadline. (It probably helped that the Mayor let them use the stadium for free for obvious reasons (see near end of article)
posted by gtrwolf at 1:41 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

A little more from the MOVE wiki page:

MOVE is particularly known for two major conflicts with the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD). In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of police officer James J. Ramp and injuries to 16 officers and firefighters, as well as members of the MOVE organization. Nine members were convicted of killing the officer and each received prison sentences of 30 to 100 years.[4] In 1985, another firefight ended when a police helicopter dropped two bombs onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse located at 6221 Osage Avenue.[5][6] The resulting fire killed six MOVE members and five of their children, and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood.[7]

The police bombing was strongly condemned. The MOVE survivors later filed a civil suit against the City of Philadelphia and the PPD and were awarded $1.5 million in a 1996 settlement.[8] Other residents displaced by the destruction of the bombing filed a civil suit against the city and in 2005 were awarded $12.83 million in damages in a jury trial.
posted by davidmsc at 1:53 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

Temple University and The Philadelphia Inquirer teamed up this year for a podcast series looking at the MOVE bombing.
posted by knile at 1:54 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

I’m old enough to remember when the NRA was all for strict gun control. But you know, for some people.
posted by misterpatrick at 2:03 PM on May 13 [8 favorites]

I heard about this when it happened, on the news, but it was presented more as a "wow Americans sure are crazy" story from the Canadian newscasters. An awful lot of the actual details were glossed over as far as I can remember.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:33 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

I learned about this as back story to Mumia Abu-Jamal's case, and I went to see Ramona Africa speak, sometime in the mid-90s.
posted by Rhedyn at 3:29 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]

“Fun” fact: for a very long time the tallest building in Philadelphia was City Hall. On the same day as the MOVE Bombing and four miles to the east, ground was broken on One Liberty Place, which would become the first building in Philly taller than City Hall, ushering in a construction boom. William Penn, whose statue is on top of City Hall, was not happy about this and cursed the city’s sports teams.
posted by madcaptenor at 5:03 PM on May 13

I knew a racist who grew up to be a cop and thought this was hilarious. Fucking scumbag. That’s who you‘re dealing with on the other side of the badge.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:52 PM on May 13

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