DAILY NEWS: Moffat said he was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car while police entered the building, began a search and arrested the other three residents. Moffat said once the search began and L&I officials were called, he told Wilson that he owned the property and could show him a deed inside, but that Wilson wasn’t interested. He asked what they were accused of.”You’re not being charged, you’re being investigated,” he said Wilson told him. At another point Wilson said, “call it a kidnapping.”
Then after about two hours, Moffat said, he was taken to jail.
“We’re going to do you a favor,” Moffat said Wilson told him. “It’s a very hot day, and we’re going to bring you down the district and put you in a cell so you don’t overheat.”
Moffat and his housemates weren’t released until after midnight. but Moffat said he was told the house was sealed,
and they could only come in the next day with a police escort to retrieve personal belongings.
“When I got to my room, it had been thoroughly searched,” Moffat said. “All my photographs on the floor, all my filing cabinets emptied. It was a wreck. Some of the stuff from my room was in other rooms.”
Moffat said he was given a property receipt indicating his laptop computer is now in the possession of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Intelligence Division.
State Police spokeswoman Cpl. Linette Quinn said she didn’t know anything about the raid or whether state police had the computer.
“You have to talk to Philadelphia police,” she said.
Philadelphia police spokesman Vanore said he didn’t know why the state police were brought in, but said there may have been protest literature involving the issue of police-surveillance cameras in other states.
Vanore said when police entered the property, they saw anti-police graffiti on walls, including the phrase, “kill the pigs.” He said there was spray paint, including some that matched the color spayed on the police surveillance video.
And he said the structure on the roof “was similar to what we saw on Osage Avenue,” referring to the rooftop fortification built by the radical group MOVE before the 1985 confrontation that killed 11 people.
The bunker charge provoked a chuckle from Moffat.
“It’s a greenhouse,” he said. MORE
PRESS RELEASE AFTER THE JUMP
