Delaware County judge upholds manslaughter charges against police officers who killed Fanta Bility

A Delaware County judge on Monday rejected a bid to throw out manslaughter charges brought against three former Sharon Hill police officers facing trial in the death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility after a high school football game last year.

Prosecutors had opposed this for months, saying that the former officers — Brian Devaney, Patrick Dolan, and Devon Smith — had not intended to kill Fanta but nonetheless acted criminally when they fired at a car they wrongly thought contained gunmen, missed, and hit four spectators, including Fanta.

In a now-rejected argument, defense lawyers for the three ex-cops said the felony manslaughter and misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter charges should be dismissed, leaving the officers facing 10 misdemeanor reckless endangerment counts each.

The defense said the real blame for Fanta’s death lay with two teens who were firing guns that day at each other. The three officers opened fire on the car, mistakenly assuming that it was involved in gunfire from the teens. The defense noted that Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer at one point charged the teens with murder, only to reverse course two months later and charge them instead with lesser crimes related to their gunfight with each other.

The defense team also stressed that it was impossible to say which officers fired the fatal shot because the bullet recovered from the girl’s body was too damaged to link to a specific gun. They said this meant none of the officers should be charged with the death. Prosecutors said court precedent established that it was enough that the officers were all involved in the “chain of causation” that led to Fanta’s death.

Delaware County Court Judge Margaret Amoroso ruled on the matter during a brief hearing Monday, after which lawyers for the three officers said they might appeal the decision to the state Superior Court. If the higher court were to hear such an appeal, it would likely delay the trial many months.

Fanta was killed while walking with her mother and older sister after an August 2021 game at Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill. The three officers, there to watch the departing crowd, heard gunfire exchanged between the two teens and fired 25 times at the passing Chevrolet Impala they mistakenly believed was involved, police said.

» READ MORE: Delco community mourns a little girl shot to death after a football game (from August 2021)

Fanta died at the scene in her mother’s arms. Her older sister was wounded.

Prosecutors in Pennsylvania and elsewhere have rarely brought manslaughter or murder charges against police. However, last week a jury in Philadelphia convicted a former city officer, Eric Ruch Jr., of voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man.

According to court filings in the Delaware County case, Devaney told colleagues at the scene that the officers were being shot at and that he, Smith, and Dolan believed the car was the source of the gunfire. But the shots were fired by the teens, Angelo Ford and Hasein Strand, who shot at each other over a petty argument after the game.

Strand, 18, whose gunfire allegedly wounded a 13-year-old girl, has pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and gun offenses and was sentenced up to 64 months in state prison. The other teen, Ford, 16, faced similar charges but escaped from a juvenile facility in Western Pennsylvania earlier this year and has not been caught.

Sharon Hill Borough fired the officers after the shootings. Devaney, 42, had been a member of the Sharon Hill Police Department since 2005. Smith, 34, was hired in 2015. Dolan, 25, was a part-time officer who only joined the force a month before the incident. All three have been free under $500,000 unsecured bail.

The three former police officers attended Monday’s hearing, as did members of the Bility family. Afterward, Stollsteimer spoke briefly with reporters, joined by Fanta’s relatives and lawyer Bruce L. Castor, who has filed civil suits in federal court over the police shooting on behalf of the family and the occupants of the Impala. Fanta’s uncle, Abu Bility, said the year since the shootings has been difficult.

“It is not an easy time,” he said. “We are grieving.”