If that wasn’t the intended plan with what they carried out, it was definitely a benefit based on the fact that police were already at odds with MOVE. So sure, no one sat at a table in a backroom and said “we’re going to kill them all” while cackling, but it was definitely not something they were opposed to based on their actions (which involved so much overreach and violation of rights that even the city and a federal judge couldn’t put a lid on it).
The article talks about how all of the deaths involved in the MOVE shootout were eventually re-categorized as homicides instead of their initial categorization of “accidental”.
After nearly four decades, Philadelphia has acknowledged that it was no accident when six adults and five children died in the MOVE bombing.
The decision to amend the death certificates followed an independent investigation released this summer into how victims’ remains from the MOVE bombing languished in a cardboard box on a basement shelf at the Medical Examiner’s Office until 2021. The negligence led to widespread outrage and resignations. Reclassifying the deaths as homicides was among the recommendations in a 257-page report released in June that traced the office’s failures.
It’s really not a stretch to think that the police didn’t want all of MOVE completely eliminated. They were unwilling to work with MOVE and MOVE was unwilling to bend to an organization that constantly violated the civil rights of the black community.