Patrick
Faces 14 to 28 years for incident that killed 8-year-old
A Sharon Hill man was sentenced to 12 to 24 years in a state prison Friday for the August 2021 shooting that set off a chain of events culminating in the death of 8-year Fanta Bility, according to reporting in the Delaware County Times.
Angelo Ford, 19, of the first block of High Street, was also sentenced to a consecutive two to four years on one of four unrelated cases to which he pleaded guilty Thursday, for a total sentence of 14-28 years.
Ford and a group of other males got into an argument while exiting an Academy Park High School football game that night. Ford and another male, 21-year-old Hasein Strand, exchanged gunfire on the 900 block of Coates Street, about a block from where the game was letting out.
One of Strand’s bullets struck 13-year-old Hafize Sherif at Kenny Avenue and Coates Street, about 140 feet west of where three Sharon Hill police officers were overseeing the stadium being let out.
Immediately after Ford and Strand fired, the three uniformed officers discharged their weapons at a Chevrolet Impala making its way down Coates Street.
Those officers — Devon Smith, Sean Patrick Dolan and Brian James Devaney — fired a combined 25 rounds toward the vehicle. Some went wide and into the pedestrians behind the car, killing Fanta Bility, and striking her sister and two other people.
Smith, Dolan and Devaney each pleaded guilty in November 2022 to one count of involuntary manslaughter and 10 counts of reckless endangerment. They were each sentenced to five years of probation with 11 months of house arrest in May 2023.
Strand, of the 500 block of Felton Street in Collingdale, was sentenced to three to six years in prison in January 2022 after pleading guilty to aggravated assault and possession of a firearm.
