Researcher Calls For Second MOVE Commission After Bombing Victims' Remains Cremated Without Family's Notice
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A push for more answers after Philadelphia's mayor revealed that some remains of MOVE bombing victims were cremated years ago without notifying family members. Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley resigned after admitting he gave the go-ahead.
The mayor has promised a full investigation but some say that is not enough.
One researcher Eyewitness News talked to wants to see a second MOVE commission, saying more needs to be understood about what happened after the bombing.
"There remains a lot of unanswered questions about MOVE,'" Shannon McLaughlin Rooney said.
McLaughlin Rooney is a Philadelphia-based researcher who wrote her dissertation on the MOVE bombing, a deadly incident in 1985 when Philadelphia bombed a home in the city's Cobbs Creek section after a standoff and shootout with police.
"People don't believe that it happened almost. So I think the opportunity exists to educate the city as a whole," she said.
She points out the first MOVE Commission did what it was charged to do, finding who was responsible for the bombing. But there's a lot even she still does not know.
"I think a second commission could start to amplify some of the existing artifacts around the city and for me, the most important thing they could do is create a kind of public curriculum," McLaughlin Rooney said.
Farley resigned this week after he informed city leaders he had authorized the cremation and disposal of some MOVE victims' remains — remains that were bone fragments in boxes found in the city Medical Examiner's Office four years ago. The remains were never identified.
"There wasn't a lot of concern. These folks were not treated with great regard in their life so of course they were not treated with great regard or dignity in their death either," McLaughlin Rooney said.
Still, no one knows who those remains are. Meantime, Kenney apologized on behalf of the city on how the MOVE incident was handled.
