MOVE 9 Women Denied Parole!
22 April 2008
The Philadelphia Inquirer ( READ FULL ARTICLE ) announced today that the three remaining MOVE 9 women (Debbie Sims Africa, Janet Hollaway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa) were denied parole by the PA Parole Board. The Inquirer quotes parole board spokesperson Leo Dunn as saying that parole had been denied on the grounds that the three MOVE prisoners had “minimized or denied the ‘nature and circumstances’ of the offense, ‘refused to accept responsibility’ and lacked remorse. He said the fourth reason for the rejections was the ‘negative recommendation’ by the prosecutor.”
ANATOMY OF STATE SPONSORED MURDER
MOVE, a revolutionary group that emerged in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the early 1970s, believed that God is life and life is all moving things – plants, animals, rain, etc. – which are interdependent and equal to humans who must make protection of life a priority. The group’s confrontational stance of non-violent protest and a tactic they termed strategized profanity was regularly deployed against perceived threats such as pet shops and zoos they felt exploited animals or corporations poisoning the air and water.
Members lived communally in a Powelton Village house practicing a lifestyle viewed by some neighbours as unsanitary then by city officials as a public nuisance. They “recycled” refuse in the backyard which attracted rats, became a breeding ground for insects, and caused a terrible, drifting odor worsened by excrement produced by an ever-growing collection of stray dogs.
 The bombing of MOVE, 1985 (click photo to enlarge) |
MOVE’s philosophy was transcribed by Donald Glassey, a social worker, and evolved from the life experiences of Vincent Leaphart, known since as MOVE’s founder, John Africa. Craig R. McCoy provides background on his childhood and young adult years in a piece published 12 July 1986 by the Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, “Who Is John Africa?“. Born in 1931, he was the eldest of 10 children in a close-knit family that faced the leanest of times in a tough neighbourhood located near the Philadelphia Zoo. He was a loner who enjoyed the company of animals. His mother Lennie Mae died suddenly in her early 40s and his father Frederick couldn’t cope with her loss or the burden of raising his large family alone. John Africa blamed the hospital for her death. Described by friends as handsome and charming, by his first wife Dorothy as dynamic and a very deep thinker, John Africa was functionally illiterate, diagnosed “orthogentically retarded” at age 9. At age 16 he dropped out of a trade school for slow-learners with the equivalent of a third-grade education. Following an arrest at 17 for armed robbery and car theft, he was drafted and served more than a year as an infantryman in Korea, where he formed his views on racism and government oppression.
 George Widman, AP (Related Photo Gallery) |
John Africa was killed in 1985 when Lieutenant Frank Powell, then chief of Philadelphia’s bomb-disposal unit, lit the fuse to a C-4 and Tovex bomb and dropped the satchel from a state police helicopter onto the roof of MOVE’s Osage Avenue home. 6 adults and 5 children were murdered, and because the fires were allowed to rage on, 62 homes in the predominately black residential, Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia were destroyed rendering hundreds of residents homeless. Glassey had been a federal informant for many years by then evading a prison term for falsifying federal firearms forms.
MOVE, the documentary by Benjamin Garry and Ryan McKenna released in 2004, can be viewed on the Internet Archive. The filmmakers intertwine old news footage and recent interviews with memories recollected and statements resurrected. They strive to present every angle of a war waged with impunity by federal, state and city officials against MOVE. It is the anatomy of state sponsored murder.
 MOVE members protest baby’s death (Michael J. Maicher) |
Populist Democrat, notorious racist, former beat cop/police commissioner, then-mayor Frank Rizzo (1972-80), unleashed police to harass, brutalise and torture members of MOVE, aware the methods were causing miscarriages, premature birth, and infant death. On 28 March 1976, the 3-week old son of Janine Africa, Life Africa, was killed during an altercation instigated by police. In an interview by telephone from prison, Janine recalls a welcome home for seven family members who were released from prison late at night that was interrupted around 2am by squad cars with the headlights turned off. When an officer announced they were investigating a complaint of fighting he was told by MOVE member Chuck there was no problem so they could leave; instead, police came out of the cars swinging blackjacks. As Janine held her baby in her arms, a cop slammed her to the ground and stomped her repeatedly to reach her husband, Phil Africa. Their baby’s skull was crushed but she didn’t see it happen.
Temple University associate professor and Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington, Jr., who investigated the story at the time and since, is also interviewed by the filmmakers. “Eyewitnesses other than MOVE” told him “they did see the baby knocked down and they did see a police officer step on the baby.” MOVE took the case to court where many of these witnesses were willing to testify, according to narrator Howard Zinn, “But before all the testimony could be heard, Judge Merna Marshall dismissed the case.”
The city requested an autopsy and MOVE refused since they considered the procedure a violation of their religious beliefs. Knowing MOVE home-delivered their children and never registered them with the state, the police and District Attorney Ed Rendell then refused to conduct an investigation claiming the baby didn’t exist because there was no birth certificate.
MOVE staged public protests against what they determined to be a life and death struggle. The city reacted with a blockade of MOVE’s Powelton Village residence that involved several hundred police officers. Water and supplies were cut-off for almost two months but failed to starve-out the occupants; the city ended the blockade when thousands marched around City Hall demanding it do so. MOVE and the city then negotiated for nearly a year and reached an agreement that the city cherry-picked to manufacture an excuse to search MOVE’s home. After discovering only a small cache of broken down weaponry, the city then denied it had agreed to a working timetable for MOVE’s relocation within 90 days and began referring to it as a deadline.
On 8 August 1978, the city launched a major military assault against MOVE threatening the home with tanks, bulldozers and anti-personnel carriers. When it was determined that MOVE members and their children had taken refuge in the basement water cannons were used to flood it. The water pressure was so powerful it dislodged cement blocks from the basement’s walls; judging by their anguished faces as they stumbled from the building the survivors had nearly drowned.
 Delbert Africa emerges from the basement and is beaten severely |
The first shot was fired as this man-made tsunami was executed. According to observers, some of whom were associated with the police, it came from behind. The cops reacted by firing hundreds of rounds in the opposite direction, towards the MOVE house; during this hail of gunfire police officer James Ramp “was shot in the back of the neck from a downward angle” and was killed.
“Three other policemen and several firemen were also hit. (The minutes of a police staff meeting two days later noted one captain’s opinion of “an excessive amount of unnecessary firing on the part of police personnel when there were no targets per se to shoot at.” One of the stake-out officers later admitted under oath that he had emptied his carbine into the very basement from which he heard screaming women and crying children.)”
Journalist Hans Bennett, who has been documenting the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal for over five years, excerpts the film and this quote from Linn Washington: “the police department knows who killed Officer Ramp. It was another police officer, who inadvertently shot the guy. They have fairly substantial evidence that it was a mistake, but again they’ll never admit it. I got this from a number of different sources in the police department, including sources on the SWAT team and sources in ballistics.”
Bennett continues:
On May 4, 1980, Janine, Debbie, Janet, Merle, Delbert, Mike, Phil, Eddie, and Chuck Africa were convicted of 3rd degree murder, conspiracy, and multiple counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault. Each was given a sentence of 30-100 years. Two other people denounced MOVE and were released. Consuela Africa was tried separately because the prosecutor found no evidence that she was a MOVE member.
Mumia Abu-Jamal writes that the MOVE 9 “were convicted of being united, not in crime, but in rebellion against the system and in resistance to the armed assaults of the state. They were convicted of being MOVE members.”
When Judge Malmed was a guest a few days later on a talk radio show, Abu-Jamal called in and asked him who killed Ramp. The Judge admitted, “I have absolutely no idea” and explained that since MOVE called itself a family, he sentenced them as such.