The Ultimate Pest Control: When MOVE got FIREBOMBED

Barbecue anyone? Oh fuck no!

Most people associate April 19, 1993 with the end of the siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, and the apocalyptic cult’s apocalyptic demise. 

A Texas-sized barbecue of wackos in Waco

The whole affair remains controversial to this day. The last I heard, it remains undetermined who fired first, but most agree it wasn’t supposed to end the same way as that of the Hindenburg. The Oklahoma City bombing two years later was primarily retaliation for Waco.

The biggest burned bratwurst of all time

Many people expressed dismay at the government's seemingly excessive response to the Bible-belching, beer-guzzling, 427 Camaro-driving, guitar-playing, gun-toting, self-described world-class sinner who named himself David Koresh. Their compound was surrounded by wheeled and tracked police and military vehicles and was constantly being overflown by a swarm of news, police and military helicopters. Clearly, both sides had some pretty heavy ordnance deployed. 

Bonnie and Clyde: The couple that stayed together by being slayed together

However, anyone familiar with Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger knows that law enforcement occasionally terminates with extreme prejudice and violence those whom they feel have earned it; however, the Waco siege and the Ruby Ridge incident a year earlier are both icons of what many see as the government’s excessive use of force.

While the Waco siege is still relatively fresh in people’s minds, the police bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia in 1985 remains largely forgotten. MOVE, which isn’t an acronym, is a group that can be best described as an anarchistic, communist, Rastafarian, neo-Luddite conglomeration of criminality. 

They want to be different: MOVE doing their best Gomer Pyle poses

Its members, many of whom were convicted felons and violent offenders, all changed their surnames to Africa, and they attempted to emulate primitive hunter-gatherer lifestyles – in Phil-a-fucking-delphia, of all fucking places. It didn’t take very long for MOVE to attract police attention after forming in 1972, and a shootout with the gang in 1978 after a nearly year-long standoff with law enforcement resulted in the death of a police officer.

Why did the police and others seem to hate MOVE so much? First of all, they were the neighbors from Hell. MOVE would blare their strange and violent messages over bullhorns and loudspeakers at all hours of the day and night. 

Che Guevara Approved: Urban gorillas, I mean, guerillas

In addition to conducting and hosting criminal activity of every description, MOVE frowned upon normal standards of cleanliness and hygiene, and the grounds around their house was filled with garbage, excrement, and composting and decomposing organic matter, stinking the entire neighborhood up to high heaven, which in turn attracted insects and vermin by their flying and scurrying hordes, further degrading the already degraded ‘hood. Everyone wanted the malodorous MOVE members to MOVE their loud, obnoxious, and stinky asses the HELL out of there.

A MOVE Christmas card

It all came to a head in the mid-80’s. After repeated complaints by residents and others, the Philadelphia Police raided the MOVE house on May 13, 1985. In a repeat of the 1978 incident, the police once again found themselves in an armed standoff with pieces of that slimy and stinky bowel-MOVE-ment. Perhaps reluctant to engage in yet another long, drawn-out, and expensive siege and/or unable to bear the stench, the Philadelphia Police devised a solution. A Pennsylvania State Police helicopter was flown over the MOVE house, and two one-pound bombs loaded with high explosives were dropped on it as the chopper hovered over. 

Droppin' da BOMB!

Both of the bombs exploded and started a fire that destroyed over 60 other houses and dwellings. Much like Waco eight years later, firefighters were prevented from entering by police, who were concerned that armed MOVE members would fire on them.

In addition to killing countless rodents and insects, 11 MOVE members were put out of their misery. Unfortunately over 200 people were made homeless by the fire. Many believe a dangerous precedent was set by law enforcement’s irresponsible use of high explosives to resolve such a situation, but it seems the lessons were learned by the Dallas Police when they used a remote-controlled robot bomb to take out the sniper that had killed their blue brethren. I imagine both the Waco and Philly incidents are closely studied at police academies, and these experiences hopefully have taught police the right and wrong ways to blow up perps.