LET IT BURN

LET IT BURN

MOVE, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the Confrontation that Changed a City

On a narrow street in a working-class neighborhood, the police are held at bay by a small band of armed radicals. Two assaults have already failed. After a morning-long battle involving machine guns, explosives, and tear gas, the radicals remain defiant. In a command post across the street from the boarded-up row house that serves as the militants' headquarters, the beleaguered police commissioner weighs his options and decides on a new plan. He will bomb the house.

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Publisher: Quadrant Books
Publication Year: 2013
List Price: $19.99
About the Book

“A balanced, well-written account which provides the best overall understanding of these events.”—Library Journal

“Compelling.”—Publishers Weekly

“A solid report from an unusual perspective.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A balanced view.”—Booklist

On a narrow street in a working-class neighborhood, the police are held at bay by a small band of armed radicals. Two assaults have already failed. After a morning-long battle involving machine guns, explosives, and tear gas, the radicals remain defiant. In a command post across the street from the boarded-up row house that serves as the militants’ headquarters, the beleaguered police commissioner weighs his options and decides on a new plan. He will bomb the house.

Let It Burn is the true-life story of the confrontation between the Philadelphia Police Department and the MOVE organization—a group that rejected modern technology and fought for what it called “natural law.” The police commissioner’s decision to drop an “explosive device” onto the house’s roof—and then to let the resulting fire burn while adults and children remained in the house—was the final tragic chapter in a decades-long series of clashes that had already left one policeman dead and others injured, dozens of MOVE members behind bars, and their original compound razed to the ground.

By the time the fire burned itself out, eleven MOVE members, many of them women and small children, would be dead. Sixty-one houses in the neighborhood would be destroyed.

There would be a city inquiry, numerous civil suits, and two grand-jury inquests following the confrontation. Michael Boyette served on one of the grand juries, where he had a front-row seat as the key players and witnesses—including Mayor Wilson Goode and future Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell—recounted their roles in the tragedy. After the grand jury concluded its investigation, he and coauthor Randi Boyette conducted additional independent research—including exclusive interviews with police who had been on the scene and with MOVE members—to create this moment-by-moment account of the confrontation and the events leading up to it.

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About the Author
Michael Boyette

Michael Boyette was the author of eight nonfiction books, and countless articles and blog posts, for diverse consumer, professional, and business audiences. He began his career as an editor for J.B. Lippincott (now Wolters Kluwers Health), where he oversaw the launch of three new clinical publications, all of which are still in print. Drawing on his background in medical publishing, he authored consumer-health titles for such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Henry Holt, and Dutton. At the same time, he held senior positions at leading Philadelphia advertising agencies, including  FCB/True North and Earle Palmer Brown.  

With his wife and coauthor Randi Boyette, Michael published a revised edition of Let It Burn: MOVE, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the Confrontation that Changed a City, their account of the deadly confrontation between the MOVE organization and the City of Philadelphia. Michael was a member of the grand jury that investigated the confrontation. The book served as the basis for the award-winning documentary Let the Fire Burn, directed by Jason Osder. 

Sadly, Michael passed away in May 2020, after a battle with glioblastoma.

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