[Buckeye McFrog]

I remember when the Philly Police took out half a neighborhood with a homemade bomb.

Do we really want to trust them with 21st. Century weaponry?

[Celerity]

I don’t recall this ... What happened ?

[WayneS]

I'm going from memory here, but I think he is referring to an incident that unfolded approximately as follows:

A mid-to-late 1970s (possibly early 80s?) group of radical-black-activist types were wanted for various crimes. They holed themselves up in a couple of row house/townhouse units in a poor/ghetto part of Philly.

These were NOT nice people by any stretch of the imagination. However, instead of waiting them out, or deploying police in the specific units in which the criminals were holed-up, the Philly police dropped some kind of jury-rigged incendiary device out of a helicopter on to the row houses/townhouses. They pretty much wiped out an entire city block.

That's how I remember it, anyway.

[PowderMonkey]

LOL! I remember that PR disaster. They were trying to break up and arrest a group of separatist nut jobs hold up in a fortified row house. So the rocket scientists on the Philly PD came up with what looked like a home made depth charge. A 55-gallon drum filled with explosives, suspended from a PD helicopter and dropped on the roof of the building. POOF! Several city blocks went up in flames. "Think ya' used enough dynamite there, Butch?"