The 1985 MOVE bombing, locally known by its date, May 13, 1985, was the bombing and destruction of residential homes in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, by the Philadelphia Police Department during an armed standoff with MOVE, a black liberation organization. As Philadelphia police attempted to evict MOVE members from a house, they were shot at. Philadelphia police then dropped two explosive devices from a helicopter onto the roof of the occupied house. The Philadelphia Police Department allowed the resulting fire to burn out of control, destroying 61 previously evacuated neighboring homes over two city blocks and leaving 250 people homeless. Six adults and five children were killed in the attack, with one adult and one child surviving. A lawsuit in federal court found that the city used excessive force and violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Since some bootlicker decided to downvote that, I’ll add that they also tried cremating remains without consulting with family members, screwed that up, and admitted it not too long after the apology.
City officials said that remains from the 1985 bombing, which were believed to have been cremated without the family’s permission, had apparently been saved in a box in storage.
Note that second article linked goes on to state the bones were cremated as it predates their discovery that they had failed to actually perform the cremation.
Thomas Farley has resigned as Philadelphia’s health commissioner due to his involvement in the mishandling of remains of the victims in the 1985 MOVE bombing.
His departure comes less than a month after news broke that a set of remains, thought to be 14-year-old Tree and 12-year-old Delisha Africa, were held at both the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University for decades and studied by their anthropology and archaeology departments, without the Africa family’s knowledge.
Farley said that it was standard procedure for autopsies by the Medical Examiner’s Office to retain “certain specimens” for possible future investigations, prior to releasing the remains to the family. After investigations are completed, the specimens are disposed of, without the knowledge of anyone outside of the Medical Examiner’s Office.
“Believing that investigations related to the MOVE bombing had been completed more than 30 years earlier, and not wanting to cause more anguish for the families of the victims, I authorized Dr. Gulino to follow this procedure and dispose of the bones and bone fragments,” Farley said. “I made this decision on my own, without notifying or consulting anyone in the Managing Director’s office or the Mayor’s office, and I take full responsibility for it.”
AND, here is a link to the 35 years overdue apology for the bombing, which I should have included in my prior comment:
For those unfamiliar:
They apologized a mere 35 years later.
Since some bootlicker decided to downvote that, I’ll add that they also tried cremating remains without consulting with family members, screwed that up, and admitted it not too long after the apology.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/us/philadelphia-move-bombing-cremation.html
https://whyy.org/articles/health-commissioner-dr-thomas-farley-resigns-over-mishandling-of-move-bombing-remains/
Note that second article linked goes on to state the bones were cremated as it predates their discovery that they had failed to actually perform the cremation.
AND, here is a link to the 35 years overdue apology for the bombing, which I should have included in my prior comment:
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/17/935886827/philadelphia-apologizes-for-move-bombing-from-35-years-ago