Remains of two children killed in accident 1985 Bombing by Police A Philadelphia home used as the headquarters of a black radical group has been returned to his brother, the man said Wednesday.
Lionel Dotson told reporters outside the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office that the remains of Catricia and Zaneta Dotson would be cremated and taken to North Carolina for burial.
“This is an important opportunity for the city to give me,” Dotson, who was 8 at the time of his sisters’ deaths, told WCAU-TV. Catricia was 14 and Zaneta was 12. “It’s not about me, it’s about them. Finally giving them a resting place permanently – I can do it for them.”
The city said officials were holding a meeting with the next of kin but would not give details “out of respect for the families”.
Led by founder John Africa, MOVE members practiced a lifestyle that shunned modern conveniences, preached equal rights for animals, and rejected government authority. He took the last name Africa.
The group clashed with police and neighbors, and police demanding the removal of the members used a helicopter to bomb the house on May 13, 1985. Five children and six adults inside died, and the resulting fire destroyed more than 60 row houses.
A 1986 commission report called the decision to bomb an occupied row house “unconscious”. MOVE survivors were awarded a $1.5 million judgment in a 1996 trial.
city health commissioner resigned In May last year when officials said partial remains from the 2017 bombing had been cremated. The city later said, however, the remains were not destroyed and was found in the medical examiner’s office.
Last month, a Long awaited report released On the injustices related to the bombing, CBS Philadelphia informed of,
But the 257-page report failed to answer the key questions that prompted the investigation last year: Who kept the box of remains in a storage room in the medical examiner’s office before its discovery in 2017? It is also unclear why the employee who had been instructed to cremate the remains four years ago under the city’s health commissioner, Dr Thomas Farley, disobeyed orders to do so.
Mayor Jim Kenney said, “I am very sorry that this happened.” “Again, a lot of mistakes were made when the tragedy happened in the ’80s. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
