[3] 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.
[7] 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.
[10] He dictated his thoughts to Donald Glassey, a social worker from the University of Pennsylvania, and created what he called "The Guidelines" as the basis for his communal group.
MOVE advocated a radical form of green politics and a return to a hunter-gatherer society, while stating their opposition to science, medicine, and technology.
The group that formed in the early 1970s melded the revolutionary ideology of the Black Panthers with the nature- and animal-loving communalism of 1960s hippies.
Pilkington quoted member Janine Africa, who wrote to him from prison: "We demonstrated against puppy mills, zoos, circuses, any form of enslavement of animals.
"[14] John Africa and his followers lived in a commune in a house owned by Glassey in the Powelton Village section of West Philadelphia.
MOVE activities were scrutinized by law enforcement authorities,[15][16] particularly under the administration of Mayor Frank Rizzo, a former police commissioner known for his hard line against activist groups.
[14] In 1977, three MOVE members were jailed for inciting a riot, occasioning further tension, protests, and armed displays from the group.
[17] MOVE representatives claimed that Ramp was facing the house at the time and denied that the group was responsible for his death, insisting that he was killed by fire from fellow police officers.
According to a 2018 article in The Guardian, "Eyewitnesses, however, gave accounts suggesting that the shot may have come from the opposite direction to the basement, raising the possibility that Ramp was accidentally felled by police fire.
They were Chuck, Delbert, Eddie, Janet, Janine, Merle, Michael, Phil, and Debbie Sims Africa.
[21] The release of Debbie Sims Africa renewed attention on members of MOVE and the Black Panthers who remain imprisoned in the U.S. from the period of the 1960s and 1970s.
[33][34] In 1981, MOVE relocated to a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue in the Cobbs Creek area of West Philadelphia.
[36] The police obtained arrest warrants in 1985 charging four MOVE occupants with crimes including parole violations, contempt of court, illegal possession of firearms, and making terrorist threats.
[6] Mayor Wilson Goode and police commissioner Gregore J. Sambor classified MOVE as a terrorist organization.
[17] On Monday, May 13, 1985, nearly five hundred police officers, along with city manager Leo Brooks, arrived in force and attempted to clear the building and execute the arrest warrants.
[35] The ensuing fire killed eleven of the people in the house (John Africa, five other adults, and five children aged 7 to 13).
The report denounced the actions of the city government, stating that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable.
[44] In 1996 a federal jury ordered the city to pay a $1.5 million civil suit judgment to survivor Ramona Africa and relatives of two people killed in the bombing.
The jury had found that the city used excessive force and violated the members' constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
[46][47] In 2005 federal judge Clarence Charles Newcomer presided over a civil trial brought by residents seeking damages for having been displaced by the widespread destruction following the 1985 police bombing of MOVE.
On September 27, shortly after midnight and prior to Gilbride's first visitation date with Zackary, an unknown assailant shot and killed him as he sat in a car parked outside his New Jersey apartment complex.
[52] In 2012, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Gilbride had told friends and family that he had recorded incriminating evidence in a notebook as security against a "hit" by MOVE.
As Jason Nark writes in The Philadelphia Inquirer, “More than a half-dozen ex-MOVE members have gone on the record in both the Murder at Ryan’s Run podcast and the blog (started by an ex-MOVE supporter) titled Leaving MOVE 2021, alleging physical and mental abuse in MOVE, a doctrine of homophobia and colorism, and what they describe as a manipulation of the public and the media under the banner of social justice.
[55] Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and activist who had covered and supported MOVE,[56] was convicted and originally sentenced to death for the unrelated 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner.
[61] In April 2021, the Penn Museum and the University of Pennsylvania apologized to the Africa family for allowing human remains from the MOVE house to be used in research and training.
[72][73][74] Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project (2019) by Matt Wolf also featured footage of the group on the ABC news show Nightline.
[75][76] 40 Years a Prisoner (2020) by filmmaker Tommy Oliver chronicles the controversial 1978 Philadelphia police raid on MOVE and the aftermath that led to a Mike Africa Jr.'s decades-long fight to free his parents.