LOS ANGELES TIMES, May 16, 1985

• MOVE - Black liberation advocate organization - cult ?
• Cobbs Creek neighborhood of Philadelphia bombing

The front page has a banner headline: "Warning From Cult Reported" with subhead and photo. Coverage continues inside with another related photo. (see images)
Complete 1st section only with all 36 pages, very light toning along the central fold, nice condition.

Background: The 1985 MOVE bombing stands out as a extraordinarily rare and unprecedented event in American history, marking one of the only instances where a U.S. municipal government launched an aerial bomb attack against its own citizens on domestic soil. Founded in 1972 by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart), MOVE was an unorthodox, Black liberation communal group advocating for raw-food diets, animal rights, and total rejection of modern technology and government institutions. What began as a local standoff over civil grievances and radical megaphone protests at their West Philadelphia rowhouse escalated in May of 1985, into a massive tactical siege involving nearly 500 police officers who fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition into the fortified residence. In a decision with virtually no legal or operational precedent in modern American law enforcement, a State Police helicopter dropped a two-pound improvised bomb containing FBI-supplied C-4 and Tovex onto the roof. The resulting explosion ignited a massive fire, which city officials shockingly instructed firefighters to "let burn" to dislodge the occupants, resulting in the deaths of 11 people inside (including six adults and five children) and the total destruction of 61 neighboring homes, leaving more than 250 residents homeless. The absolute absurdity and historic brutality of a city government firebombing an entire residential neighborhood—compounded by the fact that it occurred under Philadelphia’s first Black mayor, Wilson Goode—makes the MOVE bombing a uniquely chilling chapter of state violence, local government accountability failure, and civil rights history.