A Sharon Hill man was sentenced Friday to 12 to 24 years in state prison for an August 2021 shooting that set off a chain of events that resulted in the death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility.

Following a hearing before Common Pleas Court Judge G. Michael Green, Angelo “AJ” Ford, 19, of the first block of High Street, was also sentenced to consecutive terms of two to four years in prison on one of four unrelated counts. admitted his guilt He was sentenced Thursday to a total of 14-28 years in prison.

The sentence was less than prosecutors requested. They argued that the damage Ford’s action caused to the victim’s family and society demanded serious punishment. Ford’s lawyer said he came from a troubled past and deserved a chance to get his life together as soon as possible.

According to information developed over a period of time Hearing before Green In June, affidavits of probable cause and grand jury presentation:

Ford and a group of other men got into an argument as they were leaving an Academy Park High School football game that night. Ford and another man, 21-year-old Hasein Strand, heard an exchange of gunfire in the 900 block of Coates Street, about a block from where the game broke out.

Ford, then 15, fired shots westbound on Ridley Boulevard, and Strand fired back at Ford in the direction of the football field. The grand jury concluded that Ford fired five shots from a .45-caliber gun and Strand fired two shots from a 9 mm gun. weapon.

One of Strand’s bullets struck 13-year-old Hafize Sharif at Kenny Boulevard and Coates Street, about 50 yards west of where three Sharon Hill police officers were supervising the evacuation of the stadium.

Immediately after Ford and Strand fired, three uniformed officers fired their weapons at a Chevrolet Impala heading toward Coates Street.

Those officers — Devon Smith, Sean Patrick Dolan and Brian James Devaney — fired a total of 25 shots toward the vehicle. Some of them advanced on pedestrians behind the car, killing Fanta Bility and hitting her sister and two others.

Smith, Dolan and Devaney pleaded guilty in November 2022 to one count each of involuntary manslaughter and 10 counts of reckless endangerment. each of them Sentenced to five years probation with 11 months 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.

Decision and defense

there was ford found guilty of two counts of attempted murder for opening fire on Strand and Strand’s friend Khalil Pierre, as well as aggravated assault and reckless endangerment charges, four weapons charges and reckless endangerment.

ford An open criminal complaint was filed on Thursday to four other cases he caught in the county jail. These include aggravated and simple assault, terroristic threats, possession of a weapon by an inmate, assaulting another inmate, criminal mischief, risking a disaster, and failing to prevent a disaster. He set fire to toilet paper in his cell at the county jail in Concord, where he was incarcerated.

Green imposed concurrent sentences on most of these cases, except for an assault on corrections officers in May, for which he was sentenced to consecutive 2-4 years in prison.

lawyer arguments

The bulk of Friday’s day-long hearing was conducted by Deputy District Attorney Laurie Moore, who painstakingly laid out through a PowerPoint presentation and testimony from Delaware County Detective Vincent Port that Ford was involved in gang activity with a group known as “Members 8-12” .

Port described two juvenile warrants Ford received in June 2021 for a vehicle theft and firearm offense, as well as a related warrant issued in September 2021 for violation of probation.

Ford was arrested for this violation on October 14, 2021, and was charged with opening fire on Strand the following month.

Port, who speaks as an expert on gang activity and jargon, referred to text messages and Instagram messages found on Ford’s phone after his arrest in October that referenced the “8-12 Members” group, which was opposed to another group called Money-Making Legends, which Strand allegedly included. entered their conversations. a member.

The images and videos showed Ford pointing a gun at the camera before he was first caught, and additional posts he made afterwards. escape from child welfare institution In February 2022, it featured an image of bullets with the names of other gang members written on them, including Strand’s nickname.

Green found that Moore established the necessary evidence for a gang-related sentencing enhancement on attempted murder charges and a deadly weapon enhancement for the use of a firearm.

Moore asked for a total prison sentence of 32 to 67 years. He argued that Ford’s harm to society, his apparent inability to supervise a juvenile facility, and his choice of four additional cases in the county jail showed that he had little respect for the law and would need serious rehabilitation before being released. .

Moore has had to speak out at times to make sure the voices of many who were there to support Ford are heard, but she said her actions in August affected far more than just the victims in this case.

“First, the Bility family lost their children,” he said. “If AJ Ford had not brought a gun and started shooting, there would have been no loss of life that night. There is no loss of life. Fanta would be here. He would have been 11 years old.

“And if AJ Ford hadn’t brought a gun to a high school football game, pulled it out and decided to shoot Hasein, the pain his family and this community feel over his loss would not have happened. Don’t go over anything; it’s nothing important.”

He said the shooting divided the community, deeply shook everyone who witnessed the violence at the game that night and traumatized the officers who fired and those who responded, including Sharon Hill Officer John Scanlon, who tried to save Fanta’s life.

But more importantly, Moore said Ford never showed an ounce of remorse. He said he posed with the guns immediately after the shooting. While escaping a second time, Ford showed his freedom by coming to the county Government Center and taking a photo of himself in front of the door, Moore said.

He continued to threaten Strand and his family, bragged about fighting with corrections officers, tried to set toilet paper on fire in his cell, attacked another inmate, and hid two knives in his cell.

Defense attorney Mary Beth Welch said her client started life being abandoned by his mother and raised by his grandmother. He suffered abuse from father figures, was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, and experienced an unstable school life where he was often not given the tools he needed to succeed.

His abandonment issues were re-triggered when he was 15, when his grandmother moved away and he turned to his friends as a place to belong. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Welch said, his academic career was disrupted and his impulsivity became problematic.

Welch submitted numerous letters describing Ford as thoughtful, caring, loving and kind.

Had he been a 40-year-old who had been offered the ability to rehabilitate himself and consistently failed to do so, perhaps the sentence Moore was seeking would have been appropriate, he said.

But this was a 19-year-old boy who had been “picked up, bullied, confined to small spaces for long periods of time, isolated with nothing to do,” begging for attention, denied any meaningful mental health treatment, and without any treatment. Welch argued that he had received emotional support for the past three years.

“AJ Ford needs a way to figure out what happened and grow from that experience,” he said. “That’s exactly what the courts are talking about by giving him a path to parole sooner rather than later.”

Ford read a brief statement in which he apologized to the victims, their families and his own family. He stated that he was studying to get a general equivalency diploma but had to adapt to a hostile environment in prison where he could not ask anyone for help because that would make things worse for him.

“This case took my youth, I don’t want it to take my life,” he said. “I am very sorry for everything that happened.”

Green said there was nothing that could be done to correct the terrible tragedy of Fanta’s death and the damage it had caused to her family and community, but said Ford’s apology was a “tremendous start” to rehabilitating her and putting her life on a better path. .

“Our community has been deeply harmed by what happened that evening,” the judge said. “With these sentences I am not trying to blame Angelo Ford for what happened that night, but Mr. Ford, you played an important role.”

In addition to the prison sentence, Ford must provide a DNA sample to state police and serve eight years of probation. He is not eligible for early release, but was granted approximately two years of service.

First Publication Date: November 15, 2024, 18:54 EST