Protests Grow in Aftermath of MOVE Bombing

In the city that burst into international notoriety because it bombed a row house after a daylong standoff with a radical cult, City Hall itself has come under a sort of siege.

Demonstrators are drawn to the ornate edifice like the lawyers who flock here with threats of lawsuits on behalf of homeless victims of the May 13 bombing, ordered when members of MOVE resisted eviction.

Carrying signs and shouting through bullhorns, they lambaste Mayor W. Wilson Goode and his three top men--Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor, Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond and City Manager Leo A. Brooks--for their roles in the conflagration.

Activist lawyer William Kunstler stepped up the rhetoric Monday, branding the bombing “an act of murder.”

Legal Fallout

The scene is part of an increasing focus on the legal fallout from the bombing, which ignited an inferno that killed 11 persons in the MOVE house, including four children, and destroyed or severely damaged 61 homes, displacing 250 persons. Neighbors had complained that MOVE members harassed them, brandished weapons and lived in filthy conditions.

The protesting groups often are small, and it is unclear whether some of them represent large numbers of Philadelphians. But they are pesky.

“I’m worried,” said one aide to the mayor, looking at a group of protesters in dreadlocks, a hair style featuring rolled and matted hair. “We’ve moved into a new phase now” as the initial horror of the bombing gives way to angry--if scattered--protests

Two suits asking $10 million apiece already have been filed on behalf of the homeless victims. And suits on behalf of MOVE members were threatened Monday as Kunstler sent a colleague, Ronald Kuby, to town to carry his comments.

Kunstler’s Recording

“The act of dropping the bomb was an act of murder, and it must be treated in that light regardless of the consequences and without compassion to the victims,” Kunstler said in a recording played at a news conference called by local black civil rights activists.

“They should be indicted for the crimes they have committed, and let a jury of their peers make the final determination to the extent of their liability.”

Kunstler said city officials “had written the members of MOVE out of the human race the way Hitler did the Jews more than 40 years ago in Germany.”

Meanwhile, the mayor huddled in his second-floor office, trying to decide whom to appoint to what he calls a “blue-ribbon panel” to investigate the bombing. The commission is expected to be formed by Wednesday.

Congressional Investigation

As soon as Goode’s panel finishes its probe, a congressional subcommittee headed by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) will start its own investigation to determine whether the neighborhood residents’ constitutional rights were violated. Goode escorted Conyers to the Osage Avenue scene Monday as workers continued to dig among the ruins.

Questions that haunt Philadelphia officials include: why a bomb was dropped from a helicopter onto a MOVE house suspected of containing explosives and flammable materials; why the fire was not fought immediately; whether police and MOVE had a shoot-out outside the house during the fire, and why police asserted machine guns were in the house and a network of tunnels was under it. They found neither.

As investigators plan to resolve the nagging questions, critics of the mayor kept him on the defensive.

Consumer Party Petition

On the sidewalk of City Hall, members of the Consumer Party set up tables and, using a bullhorn, urged passers-by to sign a petition protesting the bombing.

Lance Haver, chairman of the party, which grew out of a consumer activist group, said 300 persons had signed in an hour.

“We want the (city) commission to start with the proposition that it’s wrong to drop a bomb on a community,” he said.

Explaining the connection between consumerism and the petition drive, Haver said:

“Who do you think’s going to pay” the estimated $8 million to rebuild the bombed-out community? “We’re all going to pay.”