Eviction bid starts fire, gun battle

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 1

Eviction bid starts fire, gun battle

NZPA-Reuter Philadelphia Attempts by Philadelphia police to flush out members of a radical cult went awry when they bombed the group’s fortified house and started a blaze which destroyed 40 houses. Streets in Philadelphia resembled a war-zone yesterday after the police fought a two-hour gun battle with followers of the Move cult

No deaths were reported but a woman and child were admitted to hospital suffering from burns. The police resorted to dropping a percussion bomb from a helicopter in a bid to enter the unkempt twostorey house under the cover of smoke and confusion. The house was razed by the resulting fire. The raid went badly wrong when the fire spread to destroy the homes of 40 innocent neighbours, said Philadelphia’s Mayor, Mr Wilson Goode. A four-block area round the house had been evacuated. Mr Goode had earlier backed a decision to evict the back-to-Nature group, Move, whose members shot dead a policeman in a similar siege in 1978.

“What we have out there is war. Once we made that decision to go in there we knew it would be war. The group intended to have a violent confrontation,” he said.

The police said that members of the mainly black cult opened fire first, shooting some 7000 rounds from a machine-gun, and other weapons. Two armed men escaped and two were arrested, radio reports said.

The police said they attempted to enter the house to arrest wanted persons,

and because it was a health hazard — a haven for strayanimals and vermin. A rooftop bunker with home-made gunports of steel, wood, and tin had been erected. Move was founded as the Community Action Group in 1972 by Vincent Leaphart, a handyman who took the name, John Africa. His followers, radicals who have also adopted the surname Africa and wear their hair in dreadlocks, reject all modern technology, including sanitation. Human waste and raw dog meat were reportedly strewn throughout the Move house.

Dr Steven Ludwig, of Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, said a boy, aged nine, from the Move house, identified as Birdie Africa, had been admitted to the hospital with severe burns to 15 to 20 per cent of the body.

The fate of five adults and nine children also believed to be in the house earlier yesterday is unknown.

Police experts will examine the smouldering ruins today.

“We do not think there was anyone left in there but we are going to carry out a careful search to make sure,” a police spokesman said.

No policemen were injured in the early-morning shoot-out. Move first attracted national attention in 1978, when a policeman was shot dead in a 55-day confrontation with the group. Nine Move members were later convicted and jailed.

The cult followers had said yesterday that they would not leave the house until those jailed in the 1978 siege were freed.