Shortly after dawn one day last week, about 200 policemen surrounded a three-story brick house in Philadelphia, "Surrender immediately," demanded an officer through a bullhorn. The shouted reply: "You'll have to bring us out dead." The speaker was Chuckie Africa, a spokesman for the house's residents, all members of MOVE, a radical back-to-nature cult that had staved off eviction for 15 months (TIME, Aug. 14).
as the cultists screamed obscenities and their children cried, police used a bulldozer to knock down a wooden barricade and a crane to knock out windows. Firemen pumped streams of water through a cellar window, sending rats, dogs and people scurrying to safety. Suddenly, shots rang out. Police lobbed tear gas and smoke bombs into the house. After 45 minutes, the MOVE members —twelve adults and eleven children—stumbled out. The toll: one policeman dead; seven policemen, five firemen, three MOVE members and three bystanders wounded.
The cult members were taken to jail and charged with murder. The children were washed, deloused and turned over to city welfare agencies. The house was leveled to the ground by a wrecking crew.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919800,00.html#ixzz0w8my0z9i
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Elyssa D. Durant, Ed.M.