Trio of Pennsylvania Cops Charged for Murdering Eight-Year-Old Girl

     On August 27th, 2021, three days before eight-year-old Fanta Bility was due to start third grade, she was cheering on her cousin at his high school football game in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania. On that warm, late-summer day, in the back seat of the family car in the school's parking lot, she was struck in the back by a bullet; she died in her mother's arms that day, in that parking lot. Numerous relatives were injured, including Fanta's 13-year-old cousin.

     The person who fired the bullet was not a thug in the traditional sense, but one in a uniform. We'll never know which one it was because the bullet was badly damaged as it destroyed that poor child's visceral organs. What we do know is that there are three officers responsible for her murder: Officers Devon G. Smith, Sean Patrick Dolan, and Brian James Devaney.

     Smith, Dolan, and Devaney went to the high school that day to break up a gunfight between two children, Hasein Strand and Angelo "AJ" Ford. Instead of making their community safer, they fired a barrage of bullets into the Bility car because they "suspected" it of being "involved" in the shooting. No threat to their lives, only to the lives of a group of innocent people.

     Instead of charging the officers who killed the girl, Delaware County DA Jack Stollsteimer filed first-degree murder charges against the teens, saying that they intended to hurt each other which led the officers to intend to hurt them which led to Fanta being killed. Both local city council members and legal groups around the country decried these charges as an obvious attempt to deflect from the fact that this child was killed by three officers.

     A grand jury agreed, dropping the murder charges against Strand and Ford and instead charging the officers with voluntary and involuntary manslaughter as well as 10 counts of reckless endangerment each. These charges carry a combined maximum of 45 years in prison, although they would likely, if convicted, be sentenced for the most serious offense, voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. It's funny how it was first-degree murder when two teens allegedly did it but a "tragic mistake" justifying second- and third-degree murder charges when three officers are the ones who fired the shot that killed her.

     Strand pled guilty to aggravated assault and illegal use of a firearm and was sentenced to 33 to 64 months in state prison. Ford is entering a similar plea agreement. The officers, on the other hand; Smith, Dolan, and Devaney; have refused to take any responsibility and are set to go to trial. Justice will never be served in this case, but we may yet see accountability.