Philadelphia Police Official Quits Amid Criticism Over Fire
Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor, who has been harshly criticized for the May 13 MOVE battle that killed 11 people and razed a neighborhood, resigned today.
“There will be many who will second-guess this decision and many who will deny that it is mine,” Sambor told police officials, “but the simple truth of the matter is that it is time.”
The resignation by Sambor, a 35-year veteran of the force, is to take effect at month’s end.
Sambor was field commander of the police force’s battle with the radical cult MOVE. After a daylong siege, police dropped a bomb onto the roof of a heavily fortified MOVE house, sparking a fire that killed 11 MOVE members, burned 61 houses and left 250 people homeless.
Former city Managing Director Leo Brooks and Mayor Wilson Goode testified before an investigating commission that it was Sambor’s idea to use the explosive.
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