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Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bombing

By TChris, Section Court Decisions
Posted on Wed Apr 13, 2005 at 07:53:33 AM EST
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by TChris

Almost two decades after Philadelphia police decided it would be a good law enforcement tactic to drop a bomb on the headquarters of MOVE -- a plan that failed to consider the risk to neighboring homes that were set ablaze by the bombing -- a federal jury awarded $530,000 to each of 24 residents to compensate them for the economic and emotional harm caused by the City's failure to keep its repeated promises to repair their homes.

The award amounts to more than three times the $150,000 that Mayor Street wanted to pay the homeowners to move them permanently out of their homes in 2000.

The jury was particularly displeased with Mayor Street, who wanted to raze the block rather than upholding the City's promises to repair the properties.

Of the total of $12.8 million in damages, the jury awarded the homeowners $1.68 million in damages for the harm caused by Street's "arbitrary" behavior. It also found that the mayor acted with "malicious or reckless disregard" and awarded homeowners $1.25 million.

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    Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bombing | 8 comments (8 topical)
    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Apr 13, 2005 at 09:17:49 AM EST
    Will ok, but how much tax will the state and city and county take out of this money, the fact is it should have been more like $53,000,0000.00 million to each one. if you think that is insane just think about "what if it was you".

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Apr 13, 2005 at 10:27:40 AM EST
    Link?

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#3)
    by kdog on Wed Apr 13, 2005 at 10:41:40 AM EST
    Good. If cities can't control their police, cities should pay through the nose. I'd certainly have no problem with my tax dollars being used to try to right the wrongs of the police.

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Apr 13, 2005 at 11:04:39 AM EST
    why are the cities going broke? there using their revenues to correct law enforcement boondoggles. law enforceent needs some powerful citizen oversight. i remember when that happened, that was 20yrs ago, dang i'm getting ancient.

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 14, 2005 at 05:47:22 AM EST
    It certainly is about time the victims of the MOVE bombing were compensated. Justice moves slowly.

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 14, 2005 at 06:40:39 AM EST
    Any clue on whether the individuals responsible for the incredibly poor decisions were nailed for any liability or did they walk away with taxpayers covering the cost of their incompetence and stupidity? I am betting they walked away without paying a cent. Probably got their legal bills covered by the taxpayers. This from the same folks who want to hold people accountable, right?

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 14, 2005 at 08:25:55 AM EST
    That incident still amazes me. All around stupid. And to think it took twenty years to resolve it.

    Re: Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bomb (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 14, 2005 at 08:57:43 AM EST
    CA, I lived just around the corner from where this happened for four years in the late 80s. Some of the legal delays were caused by intransigence on both sides of the table (some people did not want to settle, some did, the city's position seemed to keep changing). But I seriously doubt you can lump Wilson Goode (who by the way also lived just around the corner from where this happened, I used to walk by his house all the time) and John Street in with "the same folks who want to hold people accountable". Both are rather liberal Democrats and I have never heard either of them talk about personal accountability outside of attacking it as a conservative scheme.

    Jury Compensates Victims of Philly Police Bombing | 8 comments (8 topical)