3 MOVErs slain; 60 homes burn

Three members of MOVE were shot to death in a gun battle with police stakeout units at the rear of the cult's headquarters, police sources told the Daily News early this morning.

The sources said the bodies of the three MOVErs were lying in the rubble at the rear of the home at 6221 Osage Ave., West Philadelphia.

The identities of the MOVE members could not be learned. The sources said the gun battle occurred about 7:20 p.m. at the rear of the home during the early stages of a fire that would ultimately destroy 60 homes and cause $5 million in damage to the middle-class neighborhood.

Early this afternoon, however, Mayor Goode told a City Hall press conference that such information was "inaccurate in my view." He said the ''newspaper (Daily News) story" was "irresponsible. "

He said, however, "We do know that three men came out of the house and engaged our police officers in gunfire. We do not know what happened to them after that."

He said no bodies had been recovered and no search had been made yet for bodies. He did not deny that anyone had been killed, only that bodies had been recovered.

Earlier, speaking to residents of the ravaged area at a church shelter, he was asked about the Daily News story about the bodies. He said, "We do not know their whereabouts."

Goode also said in his press conference that he had been told the explosive device to be dropped on the MOVE house was a "concussion grenade" that would not start a fire.

Later, in answer to questions, he said he could not refute newspaper reports that the device consisted of a plastic explosive. He said he did not know the device's exact makeup.

After Goode spoke, Fire Commissioner William Richmond, under stiff questioning, defended his decision not to move firemen close to the burning homes until the fire had gained such headway that it eventually consumed 60 houses. He said he considered it unsafe for firemen to approach the MOVE home at that time for fear they would be fired upon.

The Daily News' sources said the gun battle in which the three MOVE members were killed occurred about 7:20 p.m. at the rear of the MOVE house during the early stages of the huge fire that caused an estimated $5 million damage to the middle-class neighborhood.

Three firefighters, in separate interviews with a Daily News reporter at 4 a.m., said they had seen several bodies in the wreckage of the MOVE house. There was another report from different police sources that the bodies of some MOVE children were in the rubble.

Top police officials met at about 4 a.m. at a staging area near Cobbs Creek Parkway and Walnut Street, but refused to comment about any MOVE fatalities.

The only known survivors from MOVE's compound were Ramona Johnson Africa, 30, who surrendered to authorities at 7:42 p.m. yesterday, and a nine-year-old boy, who was rescued at the same time.

City officials would not confirm the report of deaths. Neither Mayor Goode nor his spokeswoman responded immediately to Daily News requests for comment on the report.

Goode, Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor and Managing Director Leo Brooks confirmed at post-midnight press conferences an alley shootout between several MOVE men and police stakeout squad members during early stages of the fire.

But the officials said they had no reports of fatalities. They said two or three MOVE men might possibly have escaped down the alley or through secret tunnels MOVE members reportedly had dug.

Police and firefighters at the scene this morning were noticeably relaxed as they continued mopup chores, showing no fear that armed fugitives might be loose in the sealed-off block, and no indication there might be survivors.

A city crane rolled onto Osage Avenue to assist city workers picking through the rubble at the former MOVE site. Firefighters, who had retreated from last night's inferno under threat of gunfire, were training a hose today from Osage Avenue toward what was left of the compound.

Police were permitting some residents to return to fire-damaged homes in the 6200 blocks of Pine Street and Osage Avenue, plus S. 62nd Street between Pine and Osage.

A police sergeant who walked down a portion of the alley where the shootout occurred commented, "The only thing alive back there is a kitten."

PGW crews drilled into 62nd and Larchwood streets, disconnecting lines to prevent recurrence of gas fires that flared in the neighborhood last night.

One of the first residents returning to the devastated area was Cassandra Carter, who lived on Osage six doors from MOVE.

"We don't have nothing. There's nothing there," a sobbing Carter said. ''It's just a shell. Everything's gone."

She had left her dog and cat in the house during an evacuation Sunday night that city officials said would only last 24 hours. "They didn't have to die this way," she said.

But Carter vehemently blamed the confrontation on MOVE, not on city officials.

"Other people said, 'They aren't so bad. ' They were bad," she said. "We couldn't sleep. We were scared all the time."

Goode last night said he took full personal responsibility for the way the city carried out the operation. He said the city had an obligation to aid those who were burned out of their homes and planned to outline those steps today.

"War," he termed the confrontation. "The worst-possible-case scenario."

The puzzling end to an apocalyptic day matches the puzzling nature of MOVE itself. The violence-prone group, formed in the early 1970s by a man who took the name John Africa, has been described variously as anti-technology, back- to-nature and revolutionary, but the name has no special meaning.

Police reported only four slight injuries: two officers treated for hyperventilation from tear gas, one who suffered a dislocated shoulder while climbing a ladder, and another bruised when a round bounced off his bulletproof vest.

No spectators or residents were reported injured.

Police in Chester, Delaware County, raided three houses believed occupied by MOVE at the same time Philadelphia police began their operation. They found a woman and five children in one house, and the other two properties abandoned.

The West Philadelphia conflagration, which firefighters could not battle in early stages because they came under gunfire from MOVE members, raged along Osage Avenue and Pine Street between 62nd Street and Cobbs Creek Parkway, and on sections of 62nd Street.

The fire damage, which Goode estimated at $5 million, stunned residents who had demanded that the city remove the radical cult as the only step that would save their neighborhood.

The city reported at least 250 persons homeless as a result of the fire. They were mostly homeowners and their families who had complained since 1983 that MOVE was destroying their tranquility, endangering their children and lowering their property values.

As the fire grew in intensity, according to Goode, three male MOVE members were spotted in the alley that runs behind their house between Osage and Pine.

Goode said at 12:23 a.m. today that as far as he knew those three men were ''still on the loose."

Police Commissioner Sambor and Fire Commissioner William Richmond, at an early-morning news conference at the Cobbs Creek Recreation Center, said they believed only two MOVE members had escaped through the smoke-filled alley.

Goode said he had no information on how many children may have been in MOVE's compound when the confrontation began. But he added:

"There may have been some young people who lost their lives."

Police had estimated five adults and up to 12 children were living at the Osage address. Some of the children were offspring of imprisoned MOVE members convicted for their role in an earlier shootout on Aug. 8, 1978, that resulted in the death of Police Officer James Ramp.

Gunfire from the men in the alley, Goode said, forced firefighters to retreat and hampered their efforts to control the fire that brought a horrifying new dimension to the confrontation.

The fire burned for more than six hours until fire officials declared it under control at 11:41 p.m. Ten firefighters remained in the middle of Osage Avenue at 3 a.m., pouring water on the still-smoking MOVE house and nearby buildings.

The bomb was intended to destroy a steel-fortified rooftop bunker that authorities said permitted MOVE snipers to control all approaches to the house.

The bunker, constructed in plain view of neighbors and police surveillance crews, was the most visible symbol of MOVE's militance and violent intent. Its destruction became a pivotal part of the city's assault strategy all day yesterday.

High-power snorkels poured 640,000 gallons of water onto the MOVE roof from the first moments of the confrontation at dawn. The intent was to loosen the bunker from its moorings and to disorient any MOVE sharpshooters inside, police said.

Sambor said the bunker, perched on the front edge of the house, gave MOVE members the ability to control the entire block of Osage Avenue.

A fortified crane that was supposed to tear away the bunker couldn't be maneuvered onto Osage Avenue, authorities said. That led to the strategy of bombing the bunker off the roof.

At 5:27 p.m. a state police helicopter requested by city police to aid the operation hovered close to the MOVE rooftop. A Philadelphia police officer leaned out of the cockpit and dropped a satchel of explosive. The chopper sped away.

The bomb was described by police sources as a two-pound, C-4 plastic explosive packed in a satchel resembling the canvas shoulder bags used by schoolchildren to carry books.

A tense 30 seconds passed as bystanders scrambled for safety behind cars and bushes and police officers put hands over their ears.

There was a "Whooomph!" and a column of orange-gray smoke rose from the top of the MOVE home. At first, the smoke began to dissipate in the gentle breeze. But, it was quickly replaced by an ugly column of thick, black smoke.

The Fire Department turned off its snorkels. Richmond, noting that the bomb was not incendiary, said that when the bunker caught fire, "we used it to our advantage" with the idea that it would drop into the house through a weakened roof.

But at 7:10 the fire burst through MOVE's roof and flames shot 50 feet into the air. There were pops and muffled explosions, and the fire began to spread east to adjoining houses.

"When the fire started to move, there were shots fired and the firefighters backed down from defensive positions," Richmond said.

"As you know we have a bad history (with MOVE) . . . Firefighters are not supposed to be police officers.

"If it's a decision between my people and property, I tell you I'm going to protect my people," he said.

The Fire Department did not sound the second alarm until 7:35, more than two hours after the explosives were dropped. By then, the fire was spreading rapidly toward 62nd Street and moving north across the alley, destroying houses along Pine Street.

The fire escalated to six alarms, an inferno that burned bright orange on the city's horizon for hours.

In the fire's glow, hundreds of persons, many of them teen-agers, gathered from all over the city around barricades on the perimeter of the operation. The crowd turned bitter, and racial epithets were shouted at whites.

Police took some white spectators and reporters behind barricades and put them in vans to transport them away from the 61st and Pine area, site of one of the largest crowds.

As the fire and the crowds were brought under control, authorities began to mop up and assess a traumatic day in the city's history.

The shooting had begun about 6 a.m., shortly after Sambor delivered an eviction notice and notification of felony warrants against five MOVE members believed to be in the house. Those warrants provided legal justification for the police action, city officials said.

Police said they did not fire directly at MOVE's compound, but aimed barrages of tear gas and water toward the house. MOVE responded by blasting thousands of rounds of small arms and automatic weapons fire.

A police strategy to break through basement walls to reach the MOVE compound was upstaged by MOVE. Police stakeout squad members were surprised as they blasted into 6219 Osage to find MOVE members already there.

One police officer was spun around by a shot fired by MOVE, but was only bruised. Sambor said the officer was saved by his body armor "from getting shot in the back."

The shooting at the house stopped at 7:28 a.m., followed by an all-day standoff during which police kept Osage Avenue clear.

About 3:15 p.m., relatives and community mediators approached the MOVE house from 62nd and Osage, appealing through their bullhorns to MOVE members they knew personally. They got no response.

During the early stages of the fire, according to Sambor, police tried to approach MOVE through houses on Pine Street.

They spotted four MOVE members coming out of the compound, he said. Two, he said, disappeared down the alley, one fell flat at police command, and the fourth started firing, then fled in another direction.

At that point, he said, police stakeout officers grabbed Ramona Johnson Africa and a youth.

The boy, later identified as Birdie Africa, between 9 and 11 years old, was listed in good condition at Children's Hospital with second-degree burns.

Ramona Africa was arraigned at 1:25 a.m. at a raucous three-minute session during which she screamed obscenities at Bail Commissioner Charles E. Murray.

Murray, ignoring her as he recited the charges against her, set bail at $3 million on three counts of aggravated and simple assault, three counts of recklessly endangering another person, two weapons counts, criminal conspiracy, resisting arrest, risking catastrophe, and riot.

Africa appeared at the hearing with both arms bandaged because of burns. She was clad in a print hospital gown, turquoise trousers and green socks. She had been bandaged by fire paramedics but had refused treatment at Mercy Catholic Medical Center, Misericordia Division, 54th Street and Cedar Avenue.

At the beginning of the hearing, Africa shouted, "My name is not Johnson, my name is Ramona Africa. You m- - - - - - - - - - - - tried to burn my kids and murder us all. You should be charging that m- - - - - - - - - - - Wilson Goode. You kidnapped me off the street."

Murray, ignoring her, declared that her next court appearance would be a preliminary hearing May 22 at 7:30 a.m. at the 18th Police District, 55th and Pine streets.