Liberty Dispatches

On May 13, 1985, at 5:27p.m., after a standoff that involved bullets and tear gas, Lt. Frank Powell lit a fuse and dropped the first of two bombs onto the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue, in West Philadelphia.

Philadelphia. Host city of the First Continental Congress, in 1774, at Carpenters’ Hall.

Philadelphia. Where George Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army in 1775.

Philadelphia. Where 56 mad, brave men signed the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776.

Philadelphia. The city that bombed its own people on a bright, warm day in May 1985.

Once the smoke cleared (after officials had allowed the fire to burn for more than an hour), 11 people (including five children) were dead. Over 60 homes were destroyed in the fiery aftermath, leaving more than 250 people displaced, and between $30-45 million in (1985 dollars) property damage.

Members of MOVE had an unquestionably complicated history with local government and law enforcement. They were labeled a “terrorist organization” under then-Mayor Frank Rizzo in 1977 and had often-violent confrontations with LEOs, that culminated in the death of Officer James J. Ramp on August 8, 1978.

Many people might cite this checkered history as a way of, if not justifying the events of May 13, 1985, at least excusing them. Talk about a dangerous precedent. Members of MOVE need not have been angels for us to demand that the government not unilaterally bomb them. Due Process and fair dealings are the standard for all Americans, not a privilege to be doled out only if the people in question pass an arbitrary morality test.

To quote just a portion of Gerry Spence’s closing argument in his defense of Randy Weaver, after Ruby Ridge:

Can I start with the basic proposition that I think we would all agree with, and that is that government agents are bound by the law, the same as the rest of us. They’re bound by morals and by justice and by decency, the same as we.

And government agents can’t lie and say it’s right because they’re officers. And they can’t come into court and play hide-and-seek with the facts and say that’s all right because they are federal employees. And they can’t persecute people, and they can’t entrap people, and they can’t state the wrong law, and they can’t use their huge forces and their power because they are federal officers.

[…]

If you can make people of the state of Idaho hate Randy Weaver. If you can make the people of the state of Idaho despise him because of his religious beliefs or his political position. If you can demonize him in the press so that when the jury is brought together such as this one, every one of you has read something about him and start with a position of distrust and hatred because he’s been called a Nazi a member of the Aryan Nation and a far-right kook and cultist. If you charge him with murder of a federal officer and charge him with all of the other charges and counts, then maybe we won’t have to answer why Sammy Weaver was shot in the back and Vicki Weaver was shot in the face.

[…]

If we’ve demonized the man, then we can find him guilty, and if we find him guilty, it covers up the murders, and then we are all okay, and everybody’s happy, and so that’s what happened in this case.

From MOVE to Waco to Ruby Ridge, when government agents believe that they’re Judge and Jury, they have few moral qualms about becoming the Executioner. Every time a politician “offhandedly” lets us know that the government “has nukes,” they’re tapping into the same, power-hungry impulse that led the City of Philadelphia to bomb itself and change the lives of its people forever.