BY NANCY COLE
PHILADELPHIA - Eleven years after city officials dropped a bomb on the MOVE organization's house, killing five children and six adults, a jury found the city guilty of excessive force and ordered $1.5 million in damages.

After dropping the bomb on May 13, 1985, officials deliberately allowed the fire to burn, leaving 61 homes destroyed and 250 residents of the block in the Black community homeless. When MOVE members tried to leave the burning building, they were fired on by police, and only two survived -Ramona Africa and 13-year-old Birdie Africa. This is the first court judgment against any of those officials responsible for the 1985 atrocity. Ramona Africa, herself seriously burned, was convicted of conspiracy and riot and spent seven years in prison.

The trial here, which began April 2, combined lawsuits by Ramona Africa and family members of two of the slain MOVE members against the city and former police and fire commissioners Gregore Sambor and William Richmond. Judge Louis Pollak dismissed charges against former Mayor Wilson Goode, declaring his decision to drop the bomb was reasonable under the law. He found the decision by Sambor and Richmond to let the fire burn, however, questionable enough to send it to a jury.

The jury also imposed a penance on Sambor and Richmond in its June 24 verdict, ordering them to write a check to the plaintiffs for $1 each week for the next 11 years. "Every time they sit down and write those checks, they will think about it," said juror Connie Erwin, noting the number was symbolic of the 11 people killed as well as the 11 years that have passed since the bombing.

While some supporters of MOVE's campaign to make the city pay a political price were critical of the relatively small award of damages, Ramona Africa declared it a victory. "This was not about money. MOVE doesn't give a damn about money," she told the media. "This was about a violent and vicious runaway government, this was about bombing and burning."

Nancy Cole is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Pennsylvania attorney general. She is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 1776.  
 
 
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