1985: MOVE Commission investigators concluded that as a result of Sambor's orders, "the three officers responsible for developing the tactical plan did so hastily and without sufficient information or adequate intelligence."
Quote: "I was told any possibility for injury or death inside the bunker was minimal."
2010: There have been no tell-all books or teary-eyed interviews from Sambor in the decades since the MOVE disaster. He has spoken about his involvement in the fatal confrontation only when he had no other choice - namely, when the case was before a federal court in 1996.
Now 82, Sambor and his wife, Mary, live in a handsome stone property on a quiet, winding street in Drexel Hill.
When a reporter visited their house recently, Mary Sambor said her husband "won't talk to you about that [case]," as she smiled apologetically and closed the front door. (The Sambors were touched by personal tragedy 10 years ago, when a group of teenage robbers fatally shot their son, Nicholas, 40, outside his home in Overbrook.)
Within the police community, some now look at Sambor simply as a man who was in over his head.
"How many times had we handled that kind of thing?," said Upper Moreland Police Chief Thomas Nestel, whose law-enforcement career started with the Philadelphia police in 1985.
"You had a fortified house that was firing at police. That only happens in Fallujah [Iraq]," Nestel said. "There was almost a military-like response, and that's his background. He was using what he knew."
-David Gambacorta
