PHILADELPHIA, June 24 -- A federal jury found the City of Philadelphia negligent Monday in the 1985 bombing of the headquarters of the radical group MOVE and awarded a survivor $1.5 million in damages. The civil jury also found the city's former police and fire commissioners liable, but ordered them to pay Ramona Africa only $1 a week for the next 11 years, a total of less than $1,200. The $1.5 million will be shared equally between Africa and relatives of two who died in the fire. All the damages were compensatory and no punitive damages were awarded. The verdict came after nine days of deliberations and seven weeks of testimony. Africa and the relatives of two MOVE members who died in a fire touched off by the police-fabricated bomb, were seeking millions of dollars in damages from the city, former Fire Commissioner William Richmond and former Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor. The fire killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed 61 rowhouses. A federal judge ruled earlier that former Mayor Wilson Goode and former City Manager Leo Brooks were immune from the lawsuit. Africa, 40, was convicted of rioting and conspiracy and served seven years in prison following the MOVE bombing on May 13, 1985. The members of MOVE, who were described then as a back-to-nature group in an urban setting, were holed up in a heavily fortified rowhouse when, following a 90-minute gun battle, a police helicopter dropped a satchel bomb on the headquarters of the militant cult.
Among the dead was MOVE founder John Africa. The confrontation followed longstanding complaints that MOVE members were disrupting the neighborhood and stockpiling weapons. A special commission, appointed by Goode to investigate the MOVE incident, concluded that by allowing the fire to burn, city officials disregarded the civil rights of children inside the MOVE house who should have been viewed as hostages. But investigations by the Philadelphia district attorney's office and the Justice Department concluded there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by police or city officials. MOVE had a stormy relationship with the city since it was founded by John Africa in the early 1970s as a heavily armed anti-government group. The tensions first boiled over in 1978, when police assaulted MOVE's Powelton Village compound, again in response to neighbors' complaints that they were, among other things, haranguing neighbors through loudspeakers and dumping garbage in their yard. Police Officer James Ramp was shot to death in the ensuing gun battle and several other officers and firefighters were wounded. Nine MOVE members were convicted of Ramp's murder and sentenced to lengthy prison terms following that incident.
