Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,03 Mar 2021,9 mins

When US police dropped explosives on a Philadelphia home

Witness History

Available for over a year

On 13 May 1985 a police helicopter dropped explosives on a house in residential Philadelphia, in an attempt to end a stand-off with radical black activists from an organisaton called MOVE. Fire spread quickly through the surrounding buildings and 11 people died, including five children. All the victims belonged to MOVE. A total of sixty houses in the area were also burnt or badly damaged in the botched police operation. Mike Lanchin speaks to Mike Africa, who lost his great uncle and a cousin in the fire, and to the former Philadelphia reporter, Linn Washington. Photo: Aerial view of smoke rising from smouldering rubble in Osage Avenue, West Philadelphia, May 1985 (Getty Images)

Programme Website
More episodes