A Delco teen who started a gunfight on the night police killed Fanta Bility has been captured

One of two teens who engaged in a gunfight outside a football game at Academy Park High School, triggering a police response that killed 8-year-old Fanta Bility, has been captured after nearly a year on the run.

Angelo “AJ” Ford, 17, was taken into custody Monday afternoon in Philadelphia by city police, according to a spokesperson for Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer. Law enforcement had been searching for Ford since February 2022, when he escaped from a juvenile detention center in western Pennsylvania.

Ford has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and gun offenses for allegedly starting the August 2021 gunfight that wounded a teenage bystander on the night Fanta was killed.

The circumstances of Ford’s arrest were not immediately clear Tuesday, but law enforcement officials had been tracking his movements for some time. He was sent to the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, and will likely face additional criminal charges related to his escape.

» READ MORE: What to know about the Fanta Bility shooting

Ford, and Hasein Strand, 20, were initially charged with first-degree murder in Fanta’s death under the legal principle of transferred intent: Prosecutors said their actions outside of the stadium directly led to the girl’s death at the hands of police responding to the earlier shooting.

A grand jury later recommended murder charges against three officers who shot into the crowd after the football game, killing Fanta and wounding her older sister. Prosecutors then reduced the charges they had filed against Ford and Strand. Strand pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in January 2022 and was sentenced to three to six years in state prison.

Ford escaped from the Aspire Youth Center in Westmoreland County, where he had been sent after his arrest. He was placed there after the shutdown of Delaware County’s juvenile detention center, which closed in 2021 after reports of sexual and physical abuse by staff there.

On the night of Fanta’s death, Strand and Ford were among two groups of teens who got into an argument in the stands of the stadium at Academy Park High School during an exhibition football game against Pennridge, according to the affidavit of probable cause for their arrests.

» READ MORE: A year after Fanta Bility’s death, her family is mourning a vibrant child gone too soon

The teens were affiliated with warring street gangs at the time, according to investigators: Ford with a gang in Darby Township and Strand with a group from Collingdale that called themselves “Money Making Legends.”

The argument in the stands escalated as the groups left the stadium after the game. Witnesses said Ford flashed a .45-caliber pistol he had been carrying in his waistband, prompting Strand to retrieve his own gun, a 9 mm, from a car parked nearby.

Strand later told other witnesses that Ford fired first, and he returned fire from down the block, the affidavit said. One of Ford’s bullets struck a 13-year-old bystander, and the gunfire that followed caused panic among the scores of people leaving the stadium.

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 was struck in the back and died at the scene.

The three officers were fired months after the shooting, and at the grand jury’s recommendation, they were charged with murder in connection with the child’s death. But in a deal negotiated with prosecutors, the officers pleaded guilty last year to 10 counts each of reckless endangerment.

The three are expected to be sentenced in March.