Word: ramona
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This Monday the one surviving adult member of the Move household, Ramona Africa, is scheduled to be sentenced. She faces seven to 14 years in prison after an "old-fashioned political trial," as The Nation put it, in which Ramona--who it appears had taken a course in law and worked as a paralegal, dread locks and all--caught the judge on judicial procedure and made him eat his own words...
Other small miracles abounded. In the city's Colonia Roma district, a residential area adorned with scatterings of art nouveau and art deco architecture, Ramona Saldana Martinez, 30, described her survival after the collapse of a six-story apartment building. She and two of her children were removed from the wreckage after 22 hours. Said Martinez: "My mother died instantly. My twelve-year-old son also died. The wall and the ceilings came down on us, but I could breathe. I stripped some wallpaper to let the air come...
Goode also released a letter written before the siege by Move Member Ramona Africa, the sole known adult survivor of the bombing and fire that later engulfed the Move building, killing seven adults and four children and destroying or seriously damaging 60 surrounding houses. The letter warned that Move would "burn this . . . house down and burn you up with us" if the police attacked. Critics armed with hindsight said the note should have tipped city officials that a bomb could spark an inferno...
...then police had obtained warrants charging four occupants of the Move headquarters -- Frank James Africa, Conrad Hampton Africa, Ramona Africa and Theresa Brooks Africa -- with parole violation, contempt of court, illegal possession of firearms, and making terroristic threats. To facilitate the execution of the warrants, authorities on Sunday cordoned off five blocks around the Move house and ordered the evacuation of 300 people by 10 that night. Last-ditch efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution were made Sunday by Bennie Swans, director of Philadelphia's Crisis Intervention Network. The Move group, he said, insisted they would cooperate with the authorities...
...inferno gathered intensity, the tragedy took yet one more turn that was to remain wrapped in mystery. Police reported that four people -- two men, a woman and a child -- dashed out from the Move compound. Ramona Africa and the child Birdie were seized, but the two men, who were said to have fired weapons at the police, simply vanished. Police first said they fired back; then they denied it. By week's end authorities had identified two of the bodies recovered from inside the house: Frank James Africa, 26, and Rhoda Harris War Africa, 30, mother of Birdie. The Philadelphia...