Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Josh here and for this week's Select
Speaker 1: I chosen our July twenty nineteen episode on the Move bombing.
Speaker 1: It's a very disturbing, little known event in American history
Speaker 1: when the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a firebomb onto a
Speaker 1: row home where a radical group was hold up, about
Speaker 1: half of whom were children. It ended, as anyone would expect,
Speaker 1: in terrible tragedy. I hope you get a lot out
Speaker 1: of this episode.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck.
Speaker 1: There's Josh. You got to get used to this, Chuck.
Speaker 3: We will eventually.
Speaker 1: It's the new normal.
Speaker 3: Yep, and this is stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: The uh, I can't believe it's happened. Edition one of many.
Speaker 3: One of many. Yeah, this sparked off a lot of
Speaker 3: ideas too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, how the Phillies work?
Speaker 3: No, what's up with the Philly fanatic?
Speaker 1: That's the green one? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great character. Sure, so.
Speaker 1: Let's dispense with all that.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, thisre's gonna be a long one, so let's
Speaker 3: just jump in.
Speaker 1: Okay. So back in nineteen eighty five, in May, Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Police Department became the first and to this point only
Speaker 1: police department to drop a bomb on American soil. No
Speaker 1: police department has ever bombed anything in the history of America.
Speaker 1: But they did, and they happened to bomb a house
Speaker 1: that was occupied at the time with thirteen people, seven
Speaker 1: of which were children. And the people in this house
Speaker 1: were members of an organization called Move Move all caps
Speaker 1: but it's not an acronym, Nope. And they did the
Speaker 1: because Move had made themselves quite a nuisance in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: to say the least. And there was basically by this
Speaker 1: time in May nineteen eighty five, a bitter feud between
Speaker 1: Move and the Philadelphia Police Department, and on May thirteenth,
Speaker 1: it came to a fiery and tragic and it's a.
Speaker 2: Nice setup, thank you. You should have music playing or something.
Speaker 1: Hopefully Josh will do that, because God knows, Jerry's not
Speaker 1: going to sunt anywhere. Anyone knows where she is.
Speaker 2: So you want to go back in time and talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about Move and their origins, and then
Speaker 2: go forward in time.
Speaker 1: I would like to.
Speaker 3: Isn't that what you said?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: So Move is still around at the times.
Speaker 2: Over the years, they've been called a cult, they've been
Speaker 2: called a Black liberation movement.
Speaker 3: Back to Earth, a terrorist group, animal rights group.
Speaker 2: There are all these things to a certain degree here
Speaker 2: and there. Although the the leader won mister Vincent Leppard,
Speaker 2: who everyone, by the way, if you hear say the
Speaker 2: name so and so Africa, once you become a member
Speaker 2: of move you take on the last name of Africa.
Speaker 2: Which even though they weren't strictly a group for African Americans,
Speaker 2: they had white people early on. They definitely kind of
Speaker 2: got that rap a little bit more because of the
Speaker 2: Black Power movement and the fact that the leader was black.
Speaker 2: Changed his name to Africa and asked everyone else to
Speaker 2: change their last name to Africa.
Speaker 3: But though not legally, I don't think.
Speaker 1: No no, but ultimately it was well, they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: done it legally because that's part of the system, and
Speaker 1: the system was one of the things they real against.
Speaker 1: There were basically two prongs to John Africa's philosophy. One
Speaker 1: was that basically all life is important and equally important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of animal rights stuff. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of not eating meat. Ostensibly it was
Speaker 1: there vegetarianism in there there was, although they weren't strict vegetarians, no,
Speaker 1: but yes, but there was an animal rights and protection
Speaker 1: in the sanctity of life. And then the second was
Speaker 1: that the system, as they called it, was inherently flawed
Speaker 1: because everything that was created by humans was flawed, and
Speaker 1: therefore not only should not be used, but the whole
Speaker 1: system should be taken down and replaced with a much
Speaker 1: more natural, animalistic philosophy and way of life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that includes electricity, that includes like cooking meat, like
Speaker 2: these kids ate raw chicken, believe it or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the kids who were raised in the movement, and
Speaker 3: this is.
Speaker 2: This story would make a lot more sense if this
Speaker 2: was on like some deserted island and someone was moving
Speaker 2: there to start this utopian society on an island. This
Speaker 2: is a very interesting story in that it happened in
Speaker 2: a densely populated area of rowhouses in Westvilleladelphia.
Speaker 1: Born and not where you would I can't not think
Speaker 1: I hear West Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: I thought of it too. It's when you go back
Speaker 2: and look at the footage. And by the way, there's
Speaker 2: a great documentary called Let It Burn, Let the Fire Burn,
Speaker 2: that you should pay for online.
Speaker 3: I did, that's good on Amazon Prime, and uh, well
Speaker 3: I'm a Prime member, so so am I Okay?
Speaker 1: I still had to pay to rent it though, because
Speaker 1: Amazon's part of the system.
Speaker 3: That's right. Uh where was that going?
Speaker 1: Uh? You were saying that it would make more sense
Speaker 1: on a deserted island than I should in a densely
Speaker 1: populated neighborhood Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when you're watching this documentary and there's so much footage,
Speaker 2: it's crazy to see this house, this row house, set
Speaker 2: up with you know, farm animals at times in the
Speaker 2: front yard, heavily fenced.
Speaker 1: In, fortified like a fortress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes people standing outside with guns. Even though we'll
Speaker 2: see later these guns were later found out to be
Speaker 2: not capable of firing bullets, which means, well, I guess
Speaker 2: it's still a gun, but it means it's not a weapon.
Speaker 1: It's a club.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sort of. But at the very least, it's just
Speaker 3: it's an odd setting for this story.
Speaker 1: It isn't when you watch that documentary that house sticks
Speaker 1: out like a sore thumb like this.
Speaker 2: They had Amish people probably an hour and a half
Speaker 2: away from this, doing the same thing out in the
Speaker 2: middle of the country.
Speaker 3: Not the exact same thing, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But you can't get a good cheese steak in Amish country.
Speaker 3: Much less a good raw one.
Speaker 1: You can get good stick candy because they know what
Speaker 1: they're doing with that stuff.
Speaker 3: Nice furniture, butter Sure, what was.
Speaker 1: It rum Springer where they get to go crazy or
Speaker 1: whatever and see if they want to live the Amish life?
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think that was it.
Speaker 1: That was a good one, good time ago.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it's a very interesting setting for the story.
Speaker 2: It got caught up in or maybe unfairly pegged as
Speaker 2: black liberation, like I said, but sort of because of
Speaker 2: the time in which it happened, which was in the
Speaker 2: in the seventies and early eighties when the Black Panther
Speaker 2: Party was in power. There was a former Black Panther
Speaker 2: that later would join the move movement.
Speaker 1: Yes, but from all I saw in that documentary, that
Speaker 1: person was interviewed and he makes it sound like rather
Speaker 1: than bringing the Black Panther ideas to well.
Speaker 3: That's where he left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he he took our moves ideals rather than the
Speaker 1: discarded the Black Panthers idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he was disillusioned with the Black Panthers
Speaker 2: because of the violence. And it should be pointed out
Speaker 2: that that Africa's whole thing was was his whole thing
Speaker 2: was non violence, but it wasn't like that was at
Speaker 2: the forefront of like his everyday talkings, because they very
Speaker 2: aggressively and very obscenely blasted their message through these loud
Speaker 2: speakers attached to this row house, which was a real
Speaker 2: problem in this neighborhood for everyone this you know, black neighborhood.
Speaker 2: They didn't want them there either. No, that's don't drop
Speaker 2: a bottom on them, right, which is what one of them,
Speaker 2: being interviewed very clearly was like, we didn't want this
Speaker 2: to happen, but you know, they were a threat to
Speaker 2: our well being here in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were also deliberately provocative. They they purposefully
Speaker 1: made a nuisance ode of themselves because part of Moves
Speaker 1: philosophy was waking everybody else up and doing it in
Speaker 1: a really aggressive, hostile.
Speaker 3: Agitation threatening way.
Speaker 1: Supposedly, some neighbors reported that they were directly threatened by
Speaker 1: this group, which is a big problem too. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's definitely a couple steps up from agitating or aggravating
Speaker 1: people threatening them is different.
Speaker 2: Sure, but at the very least, you know, imagine being
Speaker 2: a neighbor who has lived in this house for twenty
Speaker 2: years and all of a sudden there's this organization right
Speaker 2: living there, and at three in the morning, it's just
Speaker 2: blasting out, you know, these mfors that are in charge
Speaker 2: or fin this and f and that, right, and like
Speaker 2: I felt sorry for these citizens.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, there's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Empathy like to be dispersed among many parts of this story.
Speaker 1: Yes, but the story also this basically, this story has
Speaker 1: two types of people in it.
Speaker 3: Villains and innocence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just virtually there's a there's one hero that you
Speaker 1: can point to, and he doesn't even appear in this article.
Speaker 1: He was in the documentary, which we'll talk about him
Speaker 1: for a minute later. But it's mostly.
Speaker 3: Just people.
Speaker 1: The adults acting badly and the children or the people
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood who are innocent bystanders or pawns in
Speaker 1: this whole thing.
Speaker 3: Victims. Yeah, for sure, for.
Speaker 1: Sure, Because when you're talking about like blaaring your philosophy
Speaker 1: in a very hostile, foul mouthed way. If you see
Speaker 1: the pictures of the house, like those loud speakers that
Speaker 1: they have at like stock car races or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what they had posted.
Speaker 3: Out on the house. It wasn't just some guy with
Speaker 3: a bullhorn oring like.
Speaker 1: That that walkie talkie thing that Homer Simpson had at
Speaker 1: the yard sale out Now.
Speaker 3: You can hear this along the whole block, right in
Speaker 3: every direction.
Speaker 1: Yes, and if you were anywhere near them, if your
Speaker 1: house was next door or even a couple of doors down,
Speaker 1: you heard them night and day, and it was a
Speaker 1: real problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we should back up a little bit and
Speaker 2: give a little bit of the background here. Before the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties happened and they moved into the second house
Speaker 2: on Osage Avenue sixty two twenty one, they lived at
Speaker 2: a different house in the late seventies, and there was
Speaker 2: a different mayor in Philadelphia at this time, Mayor Rizzo,
Speaker 2: who was.
Speaker 3: A scumbag, tough talking like bag. Yeah he was a scumbag.
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I saw archival footage of the man and he was
Speaker 1: sure strong man, scumbag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was one of these guys, you know. And
Speaker 2: we'll see what happened here was he was not in
Speaker 2: charge anymore, but it was remnants from that attitude basically
Speaker 2: that he laid down in the city, which is like.
Speaker 1: He was in charge in seventy eight though.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I'm talking about the bombing. So in
Speaker 2: seventy eight there was a standoff with the police. We
Speaker 2: had talked about the guns earlier. It was later found
Speaker 2: out that these guns weren't capable of firing. They didn't
Speaker 2: know that at the time, but at the very least
Speaker 2: the cops over acted or overreacted at the at the
Speaker 2: declaration of Mayor Rizzo, and that was shooting. There was
Speaker 2: an officer that was shot and killed and it was
Speaker 2: just a really bad scene.
Speaker 1: So even just a little bit before that too, there
Speaker 1: was a there was a confrontation between MOVE and the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia police where one of the MOVE member's babies, like
Speaker 1: a two month old died.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and the MOVE.
Speaker 1: Members said the cops did this, Like this baby died
Speaker 1: from this confrontation with the police, So like that kicks
Speaker 1: that off. The police eventually raid the the MOVE house
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy eight and one of the officers get
Speaker 1: shot and killed in this raid. And so you've got
Speaker 1: some real bad blood brewing between these two groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and during that raid, Delbert Africa, one of the
Speaker 2: members was and that you can see footage of this.
Speaker 2: It was all captured on camera, just beaten on the
Speaker 2: street while laying on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: By these cops while he was surrendering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So to say that there was bad blood is
Speaker 2: sort of an understatement. Was you had on one side
Speaker 2: a what you could at least define as a public
Speaker 2: nuisance in this neighborhood. You had on this other side,
Speaker 2: this zealous mayor who just wanted to get rid of them, period,
Speaker 2: not like let's meet, let's talk, let's see if we
Speaker 2: can all work together. They were one hundred thousand percent
Speaker 2: at odds with one another.
Speaker 1: So the police officer that died, the Move side said,
Speaker 1: we didn't shoot that guy. It was friendly fire that
Speaker 1: got him, right. The Philadelphia Police Department didn't agree with
Speaker 1: that story, and so on, like a personal level, like
Speaker 1: not just an organizational level, but to a cop, the
Speaker 1: cops hated Move and these people just continued on in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and actually stepped up there making themselves a public
Speaker 1: nuisance because nine of their members were arrested for the
Speaker 1: murder of that police officer and convicted. Yes, and sent
Speaker 1: to jail for decades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty two, one hundred years is what they're each
Speaker 2: sentence for. We'll talk about what happened to them toward
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: So just to kind of just paint this one last
Speaker 1: stroke on this picture we're painting here, the cops had
Speaker 1: a vendetta against MOVE because one of their own was
Speaker 1: killed during the siege. And MOVE had a vendetta against
Speaker 1: the cops because nine of their people were put in jail,
Speaker 1: one of them was beaten, and a baby had died
Speaker 1: on their side.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, let's take a break and we'll come
Speaker 2: back right for this and talk more about what happened
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five. All right, So whether or not
Speaker 2: this was a cult is some people debate that. John
Speaker 2: Africa is very much on record saying it's an organization.
Speaker 3: Is that relevant? I don't think so. I don't either.
Speaker 1: I think it's just an attempt to discredit them.
Speaker 2: Oh, to call them a cult. Huh yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's all we're talking about though.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not like criticizing you or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I'm just saying, like when people toss it around, like, oh,
Speaker 1: they were a cult. Yeah, there were some like characteristics
Speaker 1: that you could say, well, it's kind of cult like
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Let's put it this way.
Speaker 2: If it was on a deserted island, then I think
Speaker 2: people would have straight up called them a cult. The
Speaker 2: fact that it was in a neighborhood in West Philadelphia
Speaker 2: made it seem a lot less, so.
Speaker 1: I hear you.
Speaker 2: But if he was like, come here and live on
Speaker 2: this island with me, then it would have straight up
Speaker 2: been called a cult.
Speaker 1: Let me rephrase what I was saying. I don't dispute
Speaker 1: that they may have been a cult, but again it's that, well,
Speaker 1: does that mean that they should have had a bomb
Speaker 1: dropped on them?
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone thinks that. Okay.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, there were kids there that were
Speaker 2: forced to eat raw fish, raw chicken. The adults could
Speaker 2: cook their meat, which was there was definitely some double
Speaker 2: standards going on there. Their rationale was that our bodies
Speaker 2: are used to this, but we want to raise you
Speaker 2: pure from the start, so you're only going to eat
Speaker 2: raw foods.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They had a lot of exceptions, not just that, like
Speaker 1: the anti technology thing where they had like a wood
Speaker 1: burning stove for heat and that was it, right, No,
Speaker 1: they used candles instead of light bulbs, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But they also had phones and they drove cars. Right,
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of weird exceptions in loopholes
Speaker 1: and holes in general in John Africa's guidelines as he
Speaker 1: called them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. As for one of the more well the only
Speaker 2: child that survived this experience, Birdie Africa, Michael Ward, he
Speaker 2: said in nineteen ninety five, I'm still afraid of them.
Speaker 2: Of moves, some of the things that went on there,
Speaker 2: I can't get out of my head.
Speaker 3: Bad things.
Speaker 2: I haven't told anyone except for my father, but I'll
Speaker 2: tell you this. I didn't like being there. They said
Speaker 2: it was a family, but a family isn't something where
Speaker 2: you're forced to stay and you don't want to. And
Speaker 2: his contention was that the kids were always trying to
Speaker 2: get out of there and run away.
Speaker 3: They were just too little to know how too little,
Speaker 3: and you know, naked, they were naked, they were malnourished.
Speaker 1: They were like the only toys they had they had
Speaker 1: to hide because they weren't supposed to have them. Because
Speaker 1: it's technology and human made.
Speaker 3: It was unsanitary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was, you know, part of part of what
Speaker 1: move was into is growing their own food, so they
Speaker 1: would compost like in the alley behind the house or
Speaker 1: on the roof or something like that. They had they
Speaker 1: built an animal shelter in the alley. So there was
Speaker 1: a lot of really uh like not okay conditions to
Speaker 1: raise kids in let alone, like adults to live in
Speaker 1: but raising children. It was there were some really bad
Speaker 1: decisions and choices or bad outcomes from some of John
Speaker 1: Africa's philosophy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird because it's like at the heart of this,
Speaker 2: it's this back to nature movement.
Speaker 3: You know, where I want them to be on a
Speaker 3: deserted island, So by.
Speaker 2: Not even a deserted island, like go out into like
Speaker 2: there's there's countryside not too far outside of Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: Weird. It is.
Speaker 2: It's very strange because on on one hand, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this animal rights group and they're back to nature and
Speaker 2: they're issuing the things of man, but they're doing it
Speaker 2: in the most like aggressive, antagonistic way possible in the
Speaker 2: middle of a city. It's like, I don't I didn't
Speaker 2: know what to think about any of this, except obviously
Speaker 2: you don't go in there and fire bomb the place.
Speaker 2: It's like the one thing I was clear on you
Speaker 2: don't start a war in the middle of a neighborhood, right,
Speaker 2: It's true, which is what happened. Basically, the neighbors wanted
Speaker 2: move out, They fire filed a bunch of complaints over
Speaker 2: the years to get them shut down, and the city
Speaker 2: didn't really know what to do at this point. At
Speaker 2: this point there was a different mayor, Mayor Good. So
Speaker 2: this was the first black mayor of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Who actually was elected on this reform ticket, basically to
Speaker 1: get rid of Rizzo, get rid of the corruption, the
Speaker 1: racism that Rizzo had had and his administration had fostered
Speaker 1: because he was police chief first and then became mayor
Speaker 1: Rizzo and he basically after that nineteen seventy eight raid,
Speaker 1: there's footage of him just basically hopped up and boasting
Speaker 1: about how militarized the Chicago PD was now and how
Speaker 1: like they could I think he actually said, we're ready
Speaker 1: for war. Yeah, we could go down to Cuba and
Speaker 1: take them if we wanted to right now, just really
Speaker 1: like boasting about this, not like, oh man, you know
Speaker 1: this was this is a tragedy or whatever, even however
Speaker 1: you want to say it like he was boasting, like
Speaker 1: come on, who's next kind of thing. And this was
Speaker 1: the mayor at the time. So Wilson Good comes along
Speaker 1: is like not that, We're going to take a different
Speaker 1: tact here and try to promote more unity. Then he
Speaker 1: was actually pretty successful in a lot of ways in
Speaker 1: that respect as far as the city officials go. I
Speaker 1: really kind of like Mayor Good because he took rispe
Speaker 1: resonssibility for it. Yeah, even stuff he didn't do just
Speaker 1: because he was the mayor, he put himself in as accountable.
Speaker 2: All right, So shall we fast forward? Yes, the stage
Speaker 2: is set. We know what happened in the seventies. We
Speaker 2: know the relationship between this neighborhood with this group, this
Speaker 2: group with the city and the cops.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: They decide that they are going to extract every person
Speaker 2: from that house. That was the plan, as we are
Speaker 2: going to remove the Move organization from the house on
Speaker 2: Osage Avenue. In this article says they didn't have a plan.
Speaker 2: That's not true. They had a plan that just was
Speaker 2: not executed well and went really pair shaped really fast,
Speaker 2: and then they didn't have a plan. But the original
Speaker 2: plan was to they had built the Move organization that
Speaker 2: built this pretty fortified bunker on top of their building.
Speaker 2: As far as homemade bunkers go, not bad, which gave
Speaker 2: them a supreme tactical ad. If you know anything about war,
Speaker 2: you know, higher ground is always going to win out.
Speaker 1: Sure, or if you're not always designed a castle or something,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Sure castle designers they know, or mongers.
Speaker 2: Uh So, the idea was to create a diversion on
Speaker 2: the roof, in which time police officers or swat and
Speaker 2: everybody would would go inside and forcibly remove people by
Speaker 2: any means necessary in mayor Goods words.
Speaker 1: But the first the first part of that was water
Speaker 1: cannons and tear gas, you're right. And they were very
Speaker 1: surprised when these water cannons that were just I think
Speaker 1: they shot like a thousand gallons a second or some
Speaker 1: crazy amount of water. They ha just left them on, yes,
Speaker 1: two of them, yeah shoot like And they fully expected
Speaker 1: to basically take most of this house down, yeah like
Speaker 1: it was a brick row home, but they expected it
Speaker 1: to take the non brick parts off, including that that
Speaker 1: structure on top, that lookout. And they were very very
Speaker 1: surprised when two things didn't happen. When that structureding come down,
Speaker 1: despite the water cans being directed at it for hours
Speaker 1: and the people not coming out, despite tear gas being
Speaker 1: shot into the house. Right, And that is like you
Speaker 1: said earlier, when their plan went went to the to
Speaker 1: the birds, Yeah, toilet, Sure, went down the toilet, And
Speaker 1: they said, well, what do we do now, Like our
Speaker 1: whole plan doesn't work. I've got an idea. Let's start
Speaker 1: shooting at the house instead.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what they didn't know this whole time was that
Speaker 2: they were all hiding in a basement garage. So all
Speaker 2: of this water raining down on the roof wasn't I don't,
Speaker 2: Probably wasn't even getting to them. Probably not, Or maybe
Speaker 2: it's it's not like they were up to their necks
Speaker 2: and water in the basement and like drowning or anything
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: No, but they later said that the tear gas was everywhere.
Speaker 3: Sure, but apparently it wasn't potent enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe they just expired stuff and we should step
Speaker 1: back one step, chuck. Before this raid actually started, they
Speaker 1: went house to house to the neighbors and said, you guys,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, grab all your clothes.
Speaker 3: It's huge.
Speaker 1: We need you gone for twenty four hours. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: We're about to do what you guys have wanted us
Speaker 1: to do for years. Yeah, we're gonna do it, So
Speaker 1: you need to get out here. They towed trucks from
Speaker 1: Osage Avenue.
Speaker 2: They towed every carp they had, the gas shut off,
Speaker 2: the electricity shut off.
Speaker 3: It was a siege. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They basically tried to just vacate the block. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they did. Yeah, and they did. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: some people stayed when they shouldn't have. But it's like
Speaker 2: with any evacuation. They got as many people out of
Speaker 2: there as possible. Right, They're like, you'll be back in
Speaker 2: your house tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the whole block and like a couple of blocks,
Speaker 1: a couple of streets on either side are cleared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the water's been used, it's not working. The tear gas
Speaker 1: is not working. So supposedly the first shots came from
Speaker 1: the house, right, but every bud all witnesses, cops, firefighters,
Speaker 1: newspeople say that the first shots were automatic fire. It's
Speaker 1: been conclusively proven that no one in the move house
Speaker 1: had an automatic weapon. So if the first shots were automatic,
Speaker 1: then that means the cops fired first, and that's what
Speaker 1: people seem to believe. Is that the cops started this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of this documentary it's really compelling
Speaker 2: because it's footage from the commission afterward, and you get
Speaker 2: like the real deal testimony, first person testimony from all
Speaker 2: the major players, including the police chief what.
Speaker 1: Was his name, Gregory Sambor?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sambor?
Speaker 2: Who was He identified it as automatic, like his sworn
Speaker 2: testimony said it was automatic weapons, and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: how do you know? And he was like, I know
Speaker 2: what an automatic weapon sounds like, right, And.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, what move didn't have automatic weapons?
Speaker 3: You're like, oh, I don't know about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's like, I don't know how to explain that then,
Speaker 2: But they fired first, right, He just kind of stuck
Speaker 2: to his guns, right every single time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a piece of work himself. He was
Speaker 1: definitely in the cut from the same cloth as Mary Rizzo.
Speaker 3: I think. So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they decided to start shooting at this point
Speaker 2: because regardless of who shot first, it becomes like Vietnam
Speaker 2: on the city block all of a sudden, and it's
Speaker 2: not like, I mean, they cleared it out. But when
Speaker 2: you see this news footage, I mean there's people everywhere
Speaker 2: sure watching their news cameras and anchors everywhere on the
Speaker 2: streets like, oh, like, we should get behind the car
Speaker 2: now because it's raining bullets everywhere. Yeah, it's just freaky
Speaker 2: to see this happening in like a city block in
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the cop eighties. The cops later on estimated that
Speaker 1: they fired about ten thousand rounds.
Speaker 3: They ran out of bullets. Yeah, they had to bring
Speaker 3: in more because they.
Speaker 2: Ran Yeah that this car pulls up there like a car,
Speaker 2: a police car has just rushed into the scene, and
Speaker 2: it's like from a movie.
Speaker 3: The trunk pops and it's just full of bullets.
Speaker 1: Yeap, just for because they ran out of bullets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they kept shooting at this house. And here's thing, like,
Speaker 1: bear in mind, they're shooting ten thousand rounds of ammunition
Speaker 1: at a house. It was occupied by three thirteen people,
Speaker 1: seven of which are children. Everyone knows. Oh yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: knows that there were seven children in that house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like the cops were unaware.
Speaker 1: No, everyone knew that there were children in this house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was part of it. It was part of the
Speaker 1: concern of the neighbors that there were children being raised
Speaker 1: in this house, and the cops acted on the information
Speaker 1: from confidential informants who fully informed them that there were
Speaker 1: children in this house. So that's step one. They fired
Speaker 1: ten thousand rounds at a house where they knew that
Speaker 1: there were seven children.
Speaker 2: All right, so nothing is changing, though they're still not
Speaker 2: bringing people out of this house.
Speaker 1: I'll bet they were like, I can't believe this, and
Speaker 1: the structure was still intact on top.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised they didn't think they were dead. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would have thought at some point they would have
Speaker 2: been like, well, I'm sure we probably killed everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just go in there.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I wonder, Yeah, I wonder, because if they
Speaker 1: were all crowd crowded down in the basement garage, they
Speaker 1: couldn't have been firing back after a certain point in time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, they said part of the problem was the
Speaker 2: tear gas, so they couldn't send cops in there because
Speaker 2: it was flooded with tear gas. And then I think
Speaker 2: they said the well, no, that said this comes later
Speaker 2: the steam, So put a pin in the steam. So
Speaker 2: at some point someone on the bomb squad apparently says
Speaker 2: to the police chief or it gets to the police chief,
Speaker 2: hey he was really, you know, the chief was really
Speaker 2: worried about that bunker and that tactical advantage. So someone
Speaker 2: from the bomb squad said, why don't we drop a
Speaker 2: bomb on the roof and get rid of that bunker.
Speaker 3: An officer named William Klein suggested, and they said it, okay,
Speaker 3: let's do that.
Speaker 1: Good idea. Kline.
Speaker 2: What do we need, think, a helicopter and a bomb. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're like, well we've got both.
Speaker 1: So even as late as that inquiry that they held,
Speaker 1: they characterized it as a Tovax bomb, And Tovax is
Speaker 1: a water based gily and this explosive that is used
Speaker 1: I think in mining and demolition and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But it can be purchased. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It later came out that in addition to the Tovax,
Speaker 1: the bomb disposal guy made a bomb with C four
Speaker 1: plastique explosives, which is not commercially available, which means that
Speaker 1: we'll see later the Philadelphia Police Department should not have
Speaker 1: had this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we should just go ahead and say
Speaker 3: how they got it? Why not?
Speaker 1: Well, I was trying to save it for with a
Speaker 1: little flair for the dramatic, but you go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, the FBI gave it to him secretly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the FBI had been giving little bits of C
Speaker 2: four here and there to police departments apparently, like the
Speaker 2: blow doors off of stuff.
Speaker 1: To train bomb sniffing dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, teach him how to use it.
Speaker 2: But then the FBI used that excuse for a little while,
Speaker 2: then later came out and said no, we actually like
Speaker 2: brought them a bunch of C four.
Speaker 1: Like thirty blocks of C four in January, a few
Speaker 1: months before this raid, the siege, but still during the
Speaker 1: time when the like move people were being negotiated with
Speaker 1: to leave on their own.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that was happening this whole time.
Speaker 2: They would have community leaders on the bullhorn trying to
Speaker 2: talk them into coming out. They did not have a
Speaker 2: professional negotiator on the scene, which.
Speaker 1: That's a huge yeah, red flag.
Speaker 3: Yeah that they never meant for anyone to come out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but at any rate, they drop a bomb a
Speaker 2: I think it was a they said, a four pound
Speaker 2: bomb from a satchel with a forty five second fuse.
Speaker 2: This is all on camera, like you literally in this
Speaker 2: documentary see the helicopter fly over drop this satchel out
Speaker 2: of it. Yeah, fly I love that you did a
Speaker 2: running motion yeah, you know, in helicopter's run and they
Speaker 2: flew out of there and kaboom, and West Philadelphia, a
Speaker 2: bomb explodes on top of a building and a smallish
Speaker 2: fire starts.
Speaker 3: This is it? What time that was there? Like five
Speaker 3: that they dropped the bomb? Five to ten? I think,
Speaker 3: all right?
Speaker 1: And the smallish fire took a couple of minutes for
Speaker 1: it to become a parent that it had caught fire.
Speaker 1: But supposedly there was gasoline in the what.
Speaker 3: Are we calling that thing the bunker? The bunker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's supposedly gasoline in the bunker. But I really
Speaker 1: like the police dropped the bomb on a building that
Speaker 1: they knew that people were in, seven of which were children, Okay,
Speaker 1: And supposedly the reason that they did this was to
Speaker 1: get rid of that bunker. Like that bunker. The police
Speaker 1: chief did not like that bunker standing still and wanted
Speaker 1: to get rid of it. The bomb didn't do anything
Speaker 1: to the bunker. That was a strong bunker.
Speaker 2: It was the time, LI is important. So at five
Speaker 2: twenty seven is when they dropped the bomb. At five
Speaker 2: point forty five, someone asked the fire department if they
Speaker 2: should turn on the you know, they've been delusing this
Speaker 2: thing with water all day long until there's a fire,
Speaker 2: and then they turn it off, which was you know,
Speaker 2: it's not ironic because it was very purposeful, but it
Speaker 2: definitely stings more. Yeah, So they said not to turn
Speaker 2: them on by six o'clock. So this is thirty three
Speaker 2: minutes later. Mayor Good is watching this on TV in
Speaker 2: his office. He phones it in and says, you know,
Speaker 2: let's put this fire out now.
Speaker 1: He ordered the fire to be put out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty three minutes later, And this is where it
Speaker 2: gets a little hinky because this was given to police
Speaker 2: Chief Sambor, and under testimony, Sambor says that he relayed
Speaker 2: that to the fire chief.
Speaker 1: He said, he said that the fire chief was there.
Speaker 1: He did not say he related to this.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he got very dodgy with how he
Speaker 2: worded it. But the fire chief, basically, on testimony, that's
Speaker 2: what he said, and he's like, I categorically denied that
Speaker 2: I ever got an order to start those water cannons
Speaker 2: or that.
Speaker 1: He was even aware that Good made that call a
Speaker 1: phone call or called the order. So basically, the fire
Speaker 1: chief said the buck stopped with Sambor, and Sambor the
Speaker 1: police chief decided to let that fire burn.
Speaker 2: That's right, because he thought, not defending him, but he
Speaker 2: thought the fire would then take down the bunker and
Speaker 2: remove that advantage. Other people contend, and they ask him
Speaker 2: in the deposition or in the hearing, no, you've kind
Speaker 2: of really wanted to use the fire as a weapon.
Speaker 2: He got real salty about that, he did. He said,
Speaker 2: a fire can't be a weapon. Basically, he said no,
Speaker 2: I said, what about flame throwers?
Speaker 1: He goes, I hadn't thought about flamethrowers.
Speaker 2: But still, all right, so this is six point thirty
Speaker 2: flames are it is clearly out of hand.
Speaker 3: They waited way too long.
Speaker 1: That was the thing that got me was it was
Speaker 1: obvious from what Sambor was saying, if the documentary is accurate,
Speaker 1: from what Sambor was saying, that when he was saying, no,
Speaker 1: we need to let the bunker burn, still by this time,
Speaker 1: the entire top floor was a conflagration.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it's on the news, so that whole.
Speaker 1: Thing doesn't hold water at all, and it would lend
Speaker 1: support to the idea that he was using it as
Speaker 1: a weapon to burn the people out.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he was.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he thought to your guests, didn't work maybe
Speaker 2: this fire will work, okay and drive these people out
Speaker 2: of there.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, should we take a break or should
Speaker 3: we wait, Let's take a break. Okay, we'll take a
Speaker 3: break and we'll tell you what happens next.
Speaker 1: Okay, chuck. So for a little bit, the fire department
Speaker 1: sprays some of the houses next to the move house,
Speaker 1: but doesn't put the fire out or spray the fire
Speaker 1: on the move house. So in the abandoned houses, they're
Speaker 1: spraying down to try to contain the fire in the house.
Speaker 1: The one house in this whole square block area where
Speaker 1: they know people are, including seven children, they didn't spray.
Speaker 1: Later on, they will defend this by saying, well, in
Speaker 1: that nineteen seventy eight siege, move fired on the firefighters
Speaker 1: and apparently shot and injured several firefighters, so that we
Speaker 1: were worried for the firefighters to be picked off fighting
Speaker 1: this fire in this siege as well. Ramona Africa, who
Speaker 1: would be the one adult from move to s the siege,
Speaker 1: would say, well, like you said earlier, they had these
Speaker 1: they weren't scared to hit us with these water cannons.
Speaker 1: The whole time there wasn't a fire, right, But then
Speaker 1: there is a fire and now they're scared, we're going
Speaker 1: to pick them off. That doesn't make any sense. It's
Speaker 1: just be yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also I'm glad you brought that up because it
Speaker 2: said to put a pin in the steam. This is
Speaker 2: when the steam happened, because they're blowing water on this
Speaker 2: fire now and it's creating all the steam that they
Speaker 2: said didn't allow anyone to move in as well, okay,
Speaker 2: because they couldn't see anything.
Speaker 3: It was no visibility.
Speaker 1: Okay. So despite spraying down the houses around this fire, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it got out of hand really fast, and it spread
Speaker 1: very fast, and it moved very quickly, not just from
Speaker 1: the move house, but onto the neighboring houses and then beyond.
Speaker 1: And even these are fairly narrow streets that this neighborhood
Speaker 1: was built on, and it jumped the street fairly quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It wasn't contained or deemed under control until eleven forty
Speaker 2: one PM.
Speaker 1: So it's like more than six hours after it started.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this whole city block it just burning to the ground.
Speaker 1: It ended up being like a six alarm fire, which
Speaker 1: depending on the city, is one hundred and twenty firefighters, chiefs,
Speaker 1: ladder trucks. It's a big old fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you mentioned the nineteen seventy eight siege where
Speaker 2: the officer was shot and killed and where the beating
Speaker 2: of Delbert Africa went down. Important to remember that because
Speaker 2: two of the officers that were involved in the beat
Speaker 2: down of Delbert Africa were also on the scene today.
Speaker 2: And they make a big point in this commission, like,
Speaker 2: did you think about sending these guys in? There might
Speaker 2: not be a good idea and they may have revenge
Speaker 2: on their minds. And I can't remember what the answer was.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like.
Speaker 1: He said, no, I didn't think of that, yeah, or yes,
Speaker 1: I did, whatever it was. He was not like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not a good idea, right, He stood by
Speaker 1: whatever it was.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So this kind of sets up another story in tandem
Speaker 2: that's going on right now, which is at a certain
Speaker 2: point during this massive fire about seven, Yeah, they try
Speaker 2: to get out from the basement.
Speaker 1: The move people tried to get out. They tried to.
Speaker 2: Escape, that's right, They tried to get out the back door.
Speaker 2: There's this At this point, the cops had moved into
Speaker 2: the alleyway.
Speaker 3: There was no camera access.
Speaker 2: He couldn't see what happened, but from the testimony that
Speaker 2: can't even hardly get through the testimony of that kid.
Speaker 2: You know, they deposed him. He wasn't in front of
Speaker 2: the Commissionertty Africa. Yeah, but Bertie Africa was like, what
Speaker 2: do he look like ten or eleven years old when
Speaker 2: they deposed him?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was actually like thirteen, was he?
Speaker 2: But this kid is retelling the story seems incredibly credible
Speaker 2: and believable to me, right, Like, I fully believe that
Speaker 2: he was telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Over the two cops who are supposed who may or
Speaker 1: may not who may have actually fired on the people
Speaker 1: trying to escape the house, right of the two. It's
Speaker 1: way easier to believe that kid's testimony than these guys, right,
Speaker 1: who were the ones who beat Delbert Africa in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's what happened. They tried to leave.
Speaker 2: There was a kid named rad Africa that was I
Speaker 2: think like thirteen or fourteen, and he was carrying out
Speaker 2: a baby and he was one of the first ones
Speaker 2: out and he goes back into the house and there's
Speaker 2: that part of the documentary where the priest is talking
Speaker 2: to the officers and he's like, because officers were saying
Speaker 2: all we were saying was come out with.
Speaker 3: Your hands up.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We didn't fire on anything. We didn't fire. We had
Speaker 2: them out with your hands up. And this priest is like,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of what would make a kid
Speaker 2: holding a baby go back into a building engulfed in flames.
Speaker 3: And the cops are like, well, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, you can't really put yourself in a move
Speaker 1: person's feet, right, you can't really identify with them, And
Speaker 1: that minister or whatever said, actually I was friends with
Speaker 1: a lot of these people.
Speaker 3: They knew them on a human level. Right.
Speaker 1: The other thing that really kind of damns the two
Speaker 1: cops who beat Delbert Africa's testimony is that there was
Speaker 1: reports from a lot of witnesses, including like fire department
Speaker 1: people from of gunfire in this alley around this time.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing kind of adds up if you
Speaker 1: take those testimon that the reports of witnesses that there
Speaker 1: was gunfire in the back alley, with Birdie Africa and
Speaker 1: Ramona Africa's testimony that around that same time people had
Speaker 1: tried to escape, and then the testimony of the cops
Speaker 1: themselves that the people had run back in the house,
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot, like a reasonable person would conclude
Speaker 1: that the cops who had beaten Delbert Africa in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight shot at the people from move in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five who tried to escape the fire and force
Speaker 1: them back into the burning house. Right, that's certainly what
Speaker 1: it sounds like.
Speaker 2: They the cops said that the kid had or you
Speaker 2: said he was a man, he was a kid, had
Speaker 2: a rifle that he pointed at them. And I know
Speaker 2: what a rifle looks like, because the kid who survived
Speaker 2: Bertie said he had a monkey wrench in his hand
Speaker 2: that he used to get the window open. And he
Speaker 2: came out with a monkey wrench in that baby. And
Speaker 2: the cop was like, until there's between a rifle and
Speaker 2: a monkey wrench.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you're sitting here like, hey, you lay off
Speaker 1: the cops, just watch this documentary and then listen to
Speaker 1: this part over again, because it's really it's a really
Speaker 1: great documentary. It does a really good job of like
Speaker 1: laying everything out. But the part of the I guess
Speaker 1: the goodness of this documentary is that it's all archival
Speaker 1: and it lets the people speak for themselves.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's just you basically kind of watch what
Speaker 2: happened and listen to what people said about it, right,
Speaker 2: you know, including the people and I mean in charge.
Speaker 1: And it's obviously I mean it's edited. It's not just
Speaker 1: like here's this inquiry, here's my documentary. But I mean
Speaker 1: it lets it pay out enough that you get a
Speaker 1: really good clear picture of what happened in the testimony
Speaker 1: that followed.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's kind of the end of that
Speaker 2: story as it has happened. That you know, these Ramona
Speaker 2: and Bertie were the only two to make it out
Speaker 2: of that house alive.
Speaker 1: And that hero I mentioned earlier, cop Man, I wish
Speaker 1: I could remember his name.
Speaker 3: I got his name.
Speaker 1: He he could not stop himself from running to Bertie
Speaker 1: to help him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, James Officer, James Berghier.
Speaker 1: So bergheire ran to them. Despite some of his colleagues saying,
Speaker 1: don't I think it's a trap. You're gonna get killed?
Speaker 1: He said, I can't. I can't, Like I see this
Speaker 1: kid right there, and I'm going to go rescue him.
Speaker 3: He thought of his kids, he said he did, and
Speaker 3: he was.
Speaker 1: They even say like in the inquiry, like if there's
Speaker 1: if there's any like silver silver lining or shining moment
Speaker 1: to this whole horrible thing. It's what you did. And
Speaker 1: he got kind of rousted out of the police department
Speaker 1: within a year or two.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, his his own police brethren turned on him.
Speaker 2: They wrote racial epithets on his locker because he saved
Speaker 2: this kid was diagnosed with PTSD and left the forest
Speaker 2: two years later. And there's a great article I found
Speaker 2: that I read the first third of right before we
Speaker 2: had to record that of him, an interviewed with him.
Speaker 2: I guess like five or six years Agoah that I
Speaker 2: can't wait to go read and finish up.
Speaker 3: So let's finish up. Okay.
Speaker 1: So, so Bertie and Ramona were the only two move
Speaker 1: members who survived. The other eleven died, including six children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in this house that was set on fire, and the
Speaker 1: fire was set off by a bomb that the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Police Department dropped on the house. So obviously Philadelphie's gonna
Speaker 1: cough up some money for this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were settlements. The parents of the dead children
Speaker 2: settled for twenty five million dollars total. Michael Ward young Bertie,
Speaker 2: he became Michael Ward. He changed his name. He got
Speaker 2: one point seven million dollars Ramona Africa got half a
Speaker 2: million dollars and the families of John Africa and his
Speaker 2: nephew they couldn't reach a settlement, so they were awarded
Speaker 2: one million by a jury. And then here's the kicker.
Speaker 2: Police Chief Sambor and fire Chief Richmond were forced to
Speaker 2: pay a dollar a week for eleven years to Ramona Africa.
Speaker 1: To keep in mind, yeah, five.
Speaker 3: Hundred and seventy two dollars.
Speaker 1: Which is a but it's a civil I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a civil punishment basically saying we think you're like, you
Speaker 1: might not be criminally responsible, but in this civil suit
Speaker 1: we are saying it's basically like.
Speaker 3: How the symbolic payment or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like how the court, the civil court ruled
Speaker 1: against oj even though he had been found not guilty
Speaker 1: of murder in the criminal the civil court still said, no,
Speaker 1: you're responsible. We believe so we're going to get you
Speaker 1: in this way. They did the same thing. And this
Speaker 1: was despite the fact that Ramona Africa did seven years.
Speaker 1: Like they didn't say, hey, we're really sorry we burned
Speaker 1: this house. She would here's some money. They said, hey,
Speaker 1: you're under arrest for inciting riots and conspiracy of something
Speaker 1: or other and she did seven years. She didn't get
Speaker 1: out early because the parole board said you have to
Speaker 1: denounce MOVE and she refused to denounce MOVE, and she
Speaker 1: did her full seven years, although now she is not
Speaker 1: affiliated with MOVE any longer.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, Yeah, as far as the
Speaker 2: original MOVE nine, who are the ones in prison for
Speaker 2: the killing of the police officer? Two of them died
Speaker 2: in prison. I think two are still in prison. The rest,
Speaker 2: including just in February. February twelfth, Eddie Africa was paroled.
Speaker 2: Delbert and Chuck Africa are still behind bars. I think
Speaker 2: are the only two still behind bars. And as far
Speaker 2: as Michael Ward aka Young Birdie Africa, he very sadly
Speaker 2: died in twenty thirteen in a hot tub cruise ship
Speaker 2: drowning due to.
Speaker 3: Intoxication. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Brevard County, Florida Medical Examiner ruled it an accidental
Speaker 1: death from drowning in the hot tub from just being drunk.
Speaker 1: I guess what a weird way to go after all
Speaker 1: that weird life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird because during the deposition he was there
Speaker 2: with his father and I'm like, where was his dad?
Speaker 1: His dad was looking for him?
Speaker 3: Well, his dad was.
Speaker 2: Out of the country in the military while he was
Speaker 2: living in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Right, but he had moved to suburban Philadelphia. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: dad did and had been looking for Michael and had
Speaker 1: no idea he was, you know, thirty minutes away in Philly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he lived the rest of his life with his dad,
Speaker 2: and that's who he referenced earlier when he was like,
Speaker 2: you know, the stuff that went on there, I'll only
Speaker 2: tell my father, Right, super super tragic, And it's one
Speaker 2: of these things I think like we should do a
Speaker 2: little triumvirate of this in Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Speaker 3: Maybe I agreed, like three times where.
Speaker 2: There was a potentially problematic organization in the United States,
Speaker 2: government just decided to fire bombit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: These are so sticky because you want to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: these people are the victims, and you know, the government
Speaker 1: really was a villain in this one. But you're like,
Speaker 1: it's never that complex, and these stories really teach.
Speaker 3: You that that that's always that things.
Speaker 1: They are much more textured, yeah than that, they're much
Speaker 1: more nuanced than that black and white. But even still,
Speaker 1: you still don't drop You don't drop a bomb and
Speaker 1: burn eleven people to death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the city as far as that block went, they
Speaker 2: paid eleven million dollars, which was by all accounts a
Speaker 2: very inside deal with some developer who put up a
Speaker 2: bunch of houses that were condemned in two thousand due
Speaker 2: to shoddy construction. So somebody got rich again trying to
Speaker 2: build these things. Did a terrible job. Twenty four families stayed.
Speaker 2: They offered repairs and buyouts, and apparently most people took
Speaker 2: the buyouts.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And if you do like the little Google Earth to
Speaker 2: sixty two twenty one osage, it's uh still row houses
Speaker 2: and on either side of that it looks like people
Speaker 2: might be living there, right, but that building has like
Speaker 2: you know, plywood up in the windows.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, because I heard like starting in about
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen they brought in a good developer and started
Speaker 1: to redevelop it and then's starting to come back.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that one address, though, is u is
Speaker 2: boarded up, So I don't know if like no one
Speaker 2: wants to live there.
Speaker 3: Or it could be an older Google image. Yeah those
Speaker 3: are usually newer, right, I wonder well.
Speaker 1: I mean it could be older than twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Although I looked at my house the other day and
Speaker 2: it was it was the old house.
Speaker 1: The old house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was kind of like, oh, that's cute. It
Speaker 3: looks crettier than I thought.
Speaker 1: Oh, you got a good house. I gotta see your
Speaker 1: new version. Yeah, you should a fancy version. I'm just
Speaker 1: waiting for an invite come on over.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks, I can't uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about the move bombing,
Speaker 1: please please, we both beseech you go watch Let the
Speaker 1: Fire Burn on Amazon Prime, on the internet, wherever you
Speaker 1: can see it.
Speaker 3: Just see it. It's really really good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And we should point out too that no one involved
Speaker 2: on the on the cops, in the political side suffered
Speaker 2: any punishments.
Speaker 1: No, there was that inquiry, and no one was found
Speaker 1: guilty of any wrongdoing except although this will put a
Speaker 1: really good button on this multi racial panel inquiry panel
Speaker 1: that held these hearings to a person with one dissenter,
Speaker 1: said that we conclude had this not been a black
Speaker 1: working class neighborhood, right, instead a white working class neighborhood,
Speaker 1: the police never would have dropped that bomb.
Speaker 3: Of course they wouldn't have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, it's time for listening to me.
Speaker 3: Who is the loan dissenter?
Speaker 1: I didn't see he's gotta be the guy with the glasses.
Speaker 3: It's always that guy.
Speaker 2: What am I going to call this perfect pitch follow up?
Speaker 2: Hey guys, Back in two thousand and nine, my band
Speaker 2: was recording an album and those one song that ends
Speaker 2: with us all singing and holding out a single note.
Speaker 2: The next song starts with us singing that same note.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool.
Speaker 2: See what they did adding drums. Then the songs are
Speaker 2: edited together to have them flow into each other.
Speaker 3: With no gap. Josh t is very interesting because he's
Speaker 3: a musician. Jerry just be like, what meeting me? So?
Speaker 1: Huh? What'd you guys say?
Speaker 2: We had finished recording that first one, and I can
Speaker 2: tell by the look on Josh's face he's like that
Speaker 2: old trick packed our instruments away. Then we're about to
Speaker 2: start the next one. We realized we need to hear
Speaker 2: the first note so we could sing in the right
Speaker 2: pitch instead of loading up the previous song. Our pianist said,
Speaker 2: I have perfect pitch and belt it out the note,
Speaker 2: which we all who don't have perfect pitch, trusted him
Speaker 2: to be right and started recording from there. A little
Speaker 2: did we know he doesn't have perfect pitch, but it's close.
Speaker 2: When we edited the songs together and played them through
Speaker 2: the notes. We're supposed to match her off by about
Speaker 2: a half step. Now it sounds like a Jerry, very dissonant,
Speaker 2: totally wrong.
Speaker 3: Oh, I just realized Jerry's going to hear this one.
Speaker 3: She edits this episode. That's right. Just put a Wilhelm
Speaker 3: scream in there, Jerry. We'll be all right.
Speaker 2: We are already out of the studio at that point,
Speaker 2: so we ended up just releasing it and claiming the
Speaker 2: dissonance was intentional.
Speaker 3: But we never let them off.
Speaker 2: The hook and with the old oh yeah, you got
Speaker 2: perfect pitch, do you? Thanks so much for all the
Speaker 2: hard work guys. I've learned so much, been endlessly entertained
Speaker 2: for years. Signed, spanked and sent. That is from Kenny.
Speaker 1: Thank you Kenny. We appreciate that. That was a pretty
Speaker 1: great email. I mean literally lol.
Speaker 3: I can only assume it's Kenny Rodgers.
Speaker 1: I also want to say this, we give Jerry a
Speaker 1: hard time round here. It's stuff you should know, only
Speaker 1: she's not here. Imagine Actually that's not true. We do well,
Speaker 1: she's sitting right there too. I can't imagine stuff you
Speaker 1: should know without her. Yeah, we love our Jerry and
Speaker 1: she is perfect exactly the.
Speaker 3: Way she is. Called that a nice all right.
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: you can go on to stuff youshould Know dot com
Speaker 1: and check out our social links, and you can also
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.