A Delco teen charged in a gunfight the night Fanta Bility was killed by police faces a judge at trial

On a warm August evening three summers ago, Angelo Ford flashed the butt of an illegal gun tucked into his waistband and in so doing, Delaware County prosecutors say, set off a chain of events that led to the police shooting of 8-year-old Fanta Bility, who died in her mother’s arms.

Now, after a year on the run and some allegedly violent behavior while locked up in the county jail, Ford’s bench trial on attempted murder, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and related charges began Tuesday before Delaware County Court Judge G. Michael Green.

Ford, 18, was the instigator of a shootout with Hasein Strand, 21, outside Academy Park High School in August 2021, prosecutors said. The men were affiliated with warring street gangs: Ford with a gang in Darby Township and Strand with a group from Collingdale that called themselves “Money Making Legends.”

Ford and Strand were initially charged with first-degree murder in Fanta’s death under the legal principle of transferred intent. But a grand jury later recommended murder charges against three former Sharon Hill officers who shot into the crowd while responding to Ford and Strand’s shooting, killing Fanta and wounding her older sister.

In response, prosecutors reduced the charges they had filed against Ford and Strand. Strand pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in January 2022 and is serving a three- to six-year sentence in state prison.

Witnesses in Ford’s trial said Tuesday that Ford was arguing with a group of Strand’s friends after an exhibition football game between Academy Park and Pennridge. During the argument, some of Strand’s friends called Ford a derogatory name and taunted him, according to the testimony.

Ford, who was alone, lifted his shirt to reveal a .45-caliber pistol, prompting one of the people allegedly taunting him to tell the rest of the group to flee, warning that Ford was armed.

In response, Strand went to his car and retrieved a 9mm pistol, according to testimony. The witnesses said they heard gunfire but couldn’t tell who was firing.

Strand, however, later told other witnesses that Ford fired first, and that he returned fire from down the block, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. One of Strand’s bullets struck Hafize Sherif, a bystander, and the gunfire that followed caused panic among the scores of people leaving the stadium.

Meanwhile, Sharon Hill police officers Brian Devaney, Devon Smith, and Patrick Dolan were standing about a block away from where Stand and Ford shot at each other, monitoring the crowd leaving the stadium, according to court documents.

They mistakenly believed the gunfire had come from a car that had abruptly stopped in front of them, and they shot at the vehicle, authorities said. One of the 27 bullets they fired struck Fanta, who was leaving the stadium with her mother and older sister. Fanta died at the scene.

The three officers were fired not long afterward and were sentenced last year to five years of probation.

Ford, however, was not interested in the plea deal offered to him and Strand. He escaped from the Aspire Youth Center in Westmoreland County, where he had been sent after his arrest after the shutdown of Delaware County’s juvenile detention center.

He was on the run for nearly a year before being arrested by U.S. marshals in Philadelphia. And since his arrest in February 2023, Ford has gotten into trouble multiple times while incarcerated at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, and has two criminal cases pending.

In the first case, a guard at the county jail found two makeshift knives in Ford’s bunk during a search in March, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. A month later, Ford started a fire in his cell using its light fixture, fed the blaze with toilet paper, and ignored commands from guards to stop.

While being removed from his cell, Ford assaulted a guard and threatened to attack another the next time he saw him, the affidavit said.

His trial before Green is expected to last through Friday.