The Nation - News from Oct. 24, 1985
The Philadelphia police officer who made the bomb that was dropped on a house occupied by members of the radical MOVE cult refused to testify publicly before a commission investigating the May 13 battle in which 11 MOVE members were killed. A lawyer for Lt. Frank Powell made the announcement shortly after a federal judge ruled that police do not have to appear in public before the panel and can refuse to answer questions posed during closed-door hearings. Powell, the head of the city’s police bomb squad who assembled the explosive, dropped it from a helicopter onto the roof of the heavily fortified MOVE headquarters at the climax of a daylong gun battle with members of the group.
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