PHILADELPHIA — A Delaware County judge 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 — knew the risks of firing toward a crowd after the high school football game last year and were directly responsible for the girl‘s killing.
Manslaughter, but not murder, was the appropriate charge for the officers, because they had not acted under a “mistaken belief of self-defense” by firing at the car, prosecutors said.
Defense lawyers for the three ex-cops said the former officers were not to blame and were being unfairly targeted “because of their profession” amid pressure from activist groups.
Delaware County Court Judge Margaret Amoroso ruled on the matter during a hearing Monday, after which lawyers for the three officers said they would consider appealing the decision to the state Superior Court.
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 two teens and fired 25 times at a Chevrolet Impala that happened to be driving nearby. They mistakenly believed the car was involved in that shooting, police said.
Some of the officers’ bullets flew past the car, hitting four people, including Fanta, who died at the scene in her mother’s arms. It’s unclear which officer fired the shot that killed the girl: The bullet recovered from her body was too badly damaged to trace to a specific gun, prosecutors say.
The three men each face a felony charge of voluntary manslaughter, a lesser manslaughter count of involuntary manslaughter, and 10 misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment.
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 after a car chase.
In Delaware County, prosecutors have acknowledged that the officers had no intent to kill Fanta, but said they were reckless to fire at the car when spectators were exiting behind the vehicle,
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, according to court filings. But the shots were fired by the teens, Angelo “AJ” Ford and Hasein Strand, who were standing 140 feet away from the officers and shot at each other at the height of a petty argument after the game.
The teens were initially charged with Fanta’s murder under a legal theory called transferred intent, but Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer later withdrew those charges after a grand jury recommended charges against the officers.
Strand, 18, one of the teens charged in connection with the shooting, 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.
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