Hear from NBCPhiladelphia‘s Jim Barger and Pete Kane. Two of the photojournalists who were the closest to the action on Osage Avenue when MOVE happened on May 13, 1985. The memories of that day forever live in each man.
NBC Philadelphia’s Jim Barger was right there when MOVE changed Philadelphia forever on My 13, 1985.
Barger, a photographer for then WCAU-TV, worked for 26 straight hours on Osage Avenue in West Philly, just feet from where the MOVE standoff went down. The only times he left his post were to grab a bite to eat at a nearby grocery store.
Jim was one of the guys responsible for getting the infamous shot of a police helicopter dropping a bomb onto the MOVE compound.
The aftermath of the standoff was 11 MOVE members dead and nearly a whole city block burnt to the ground.
Twenty-five years later Barger, who now serves as Director of Engineering and Operations for NBC Philadelphia, looks back:
"It was a day unlike any other I have ever experienced or will ever experience again -- I hope. In a word -- "surreal."
Imagine standing just steps away from a neighborhood that in a few hours, would be ashes. That was my day. It started with a call from my boss Dave Harvey asking me to get to the station and jump in the helicopter, I asked why, he told me there was a gun battle going on in the city. On my drive in, I thought wait -- they have guns and I’m going to be flying above them??? I never got in the chopper.
That decision changed my life forever."
