The headline in 1985 read something like “Police Bomb Osage Avenue MOVE House, 11 MOVE Members Dead, 61 Houses Destroyed.”
Where there’s police brutality, citizen pushback isn’t far behind. When the peace of innocent residents of a block is disrupted by unruly neighbors (threats of violence, the constant blare of bullhorns, filthy conditions–the group did not believe in exterminating vermin–) public opinion in the neighborhood swings back against the former victims, giving authorities renewed confidence for suppression.
Add in suspicions of a double police cover-up in incidents seperated by seven years and you’ve got a template for the MOVE disaster. Director Jason Osder, brings the havoc back to life using only archival footage. He makes use of public hearings, TV coverage, and the deposition of one of two survivors, 11-year-old Birdie Africa.
Was the police officer killed in the first incident in 1978 shot by police friendly fire? Were seven MOVE members subsequently sentenced to lengthy prison terms actually scapegoats? Did MOVE members who came out of the burning house in 1985 only to go back into it, return because they were being shot at by police?
Osder makes a case for both suspicions–a stronger one for the latter. What does seem sure is the Rizzo administration overreacted and the Goode administration waited too long to act, that both police and MOVE shared blame, and that, the uniformly condemned decision to bomb the property and then let the fire burn probably ranks as the most asinine government blunder in Philadelphia history. It also cost the city around $50 million to relocate displaced residents.
It’s sad that although the investigative commission condemned city officials (they used the word “malicious” referring to Mayor Goode) their conclusion led to zero criminal prosecutions.
Goode won’t be on the post-screening panel at the film’s next Philadelphia Film Festival screening of the film on Saturday, October 26 at 2pm. Ramona Africa, the other remaining survivor, will be though, as will Jim Berghaier, the Philadelphia policeman who heroically pulled Birdie to safety….The film opens theatrically at The Ritz Bourse on November 1.
4 Raging Infernos of Shame (out of 5 stars)