What to know about the Fanta Bility shooting

On Thursday, three former Sharon Hill police officers pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment in the death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility. That outcome was more than a year in the making and came after months of protest by Fanta’s family and community activists seeking accountability for the child’s death.

Here are some of the facts of the case:

Fanta was the daughter of immigrants from West Africa, who moved to Delaware County in 2004, fleeing the civil war in their native Liberia. Her loved ones described her as a vibrant, happy child who loved to draw and dance and shared everything she had with her friends and family.

On Aug. 27, 2021, Fanta joined her mother and their extended family on a trip to Academy Park High School, where they planned to watch her older sister Mawatta perform for the first time as a cheerleader. The school’s football team was playing Pennsbury in a preseason exhibition game.

Three Sharon Hill police officers assigned to monitor the crowd leaving the stadium after the game opened fire on a Chevrolet Impala that had stopped abruptly in front of them, according to investigators. The officers — Brian Devaney, Sean Dolan, and Devon Smith — were responding to a shooting that occurred about a block away.

Police said the officers believed at the time that the car was the source of the gunfire, and that it had been aimed at them. They fired 25 shots at the vehicle, and some of the bullets flew past it and struck four people in the crowd, including Fanta.

A grand jury was impaneled to investigate the shooting. Though the three officers declined to testify, their colleagues did, and said the officers’ initial belief about the shooting was mistaken.

The gunfire had come from two teenagers, Angelo “AJ” Ford and Hasein Strand, who had gotten into a gunfight with each other nearby.

The grand jury concluded that the officers were responsible for Fanta’s death, though it was unclear who fired the fatal shot, because the bullet that struck Fanta was too badly damaged to trace to a specific gun.

Initially, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer charged Ford and Strand with murder under a legal principle known as transferred intent. He said their actions caused a chain of events that directly led to Fanta’s death.

However, amid public outcry, those charges were withdrawn and replaced with aggravated assault. Strand pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 32 to 64 months in state prison. Ford is on the run after escaping a youth detention facility in western Pennsylvania.

That same day, the three former officers were charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and related crimes, as recommended by the grand jury.

They were fired in a 6-1 vote by the Sharon Hill Borough Council just days after criminal charges were filed against them.

Delaware County Judge Margaret J. Amoroso is expected to sentence the three officers next year after they pleaded guilty Thursday to 10 counts each of reckless endangerment.

Fanta’s family has also filed a federal lawsuit against the three officers and the Sharon Hill Police Department, saying the officers were not properly trained and had used excessive force in responding to the nearby shooting. The suit had been put on hold because of the criminal investigation. It will now move forward.