I studied this quite a bit, especially since it happened in my backyard so to speak.
Lest anyone think otherwise, I am not sympathetic to MOVE’s techniques. If you want to be back-to-nature, go for it. If you want to speak freely, go ahead. But yelling at the neighborhood with a bullhorn isn’t cool. And as communists, I have little doubt they’d dislike my Milton Friedman tshirt. I’d be pi##3d if they were my neighbors.
The City of Philadelphia and MOVE had bad blood between them. There was a gunfight in the 70s where an officer was killed (MOVE was at fault in that case, though as someone else noted it’s a miracle that it wasn’t a war scene with Rizzo in charge). In some ways, it’s surprising that the Osage Ave bombing happened years and not months later.
Despite the revisionist history presented elsewhere, eg Ramona Africa is from Philly, this is not a saint vs sinner story. MOVE was absolutely poking the bear. But the City was in way over its head. Quoth wiki:
On Monday, May 13, 1985, nearly 500 police officers, along with city manager Leo Brooks, arrived in force and attempted to clear the building and execute the arrest warrants.[10][9] Water and electricity were shut off in order to force MOVE members out of the house. At 5:35 a.m., Sambor read a long speech addressed to MOVE members that started with, “Attention MOVE: This is America. You have to abide by the laws of the United States.” They were given 15 minutes to come out. When the MOVE members did not respond, the police decided to forcibly remove the people who remained in the house.[10][6] Inside the building were seven adults and six children.[11]
There was an armed standoff with police,[12] who threw tear gas canisters at the building. The MOVE members fired at them, and a gunfight with semi-automatic and automatic firearms ensued for 90 minutes.[13] One officer was hit in the back in his flak jacket but was not seriously hurt.[6] Police used more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition. At 2 p.m., Sambor ordered that the compound be bombed.[13]
From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two 1.5-pound (0.75 kg) bombs (which the police referred to as “entry devices”[9]) made of Tovex, a dynamite substitute, combined with two pounds of FBI-supplied C-4,[14] targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house.[6] The bombs exploded after 45 seconds, igniting the fuel of a gasoline-powered generator and setting the house on fire, which was left to burn. Officials later stated that this was to let the fire burn through the roof and destroy the “bunker”, so police could then drop tear gas into the house and flush out the occupants. Thirty minutes later, firefighters moved in to control the fire but there was gunfire and the firefighters and police were ordered back as the fire spread to neighboring houses down the street.
Again, MOVE isn’t a club I’d want to join. But make MOVE a MAGA group with a bullhorn that got murdered by the state of Michigan, and let’s see where people line up.