Family: Police who killed 8-year-old girl at football game were reckless
Excessive force alleged in lawsuit over incident in Delaware County
The family of 8-year-old Fanta Bility, who was killed by police at a football game in Delaware County in August has sued the borough of Sharon Hill and the police officers who fired the deadly shots, accusing them of excessive force in responding to reports of a shooting, saying the department has a history of improperly training its staff.
In a federal civil rights lawsuit, filed Tuesday, attorney Bruce L. Castor said the girl’s family “seeks answers and damages for the tragic and unnecessary death ... and the injury and trauma inflicted on others as a result of the misconduct of Sharon Hill Police officers.”
Fanta and her family were leaving a football game at Academy Park High School on Aug. 27 when police opened fire on a vehicle driving near the stadium, investigators have said. Fanta was struck in the back and died a short time later at the scene in her mother’s arms, Castor wrote in the lawsuit.
Castor said the officers were “deliberately indifferent and reckless” that night, and that the borough and its police chief had given the officers “tacit approval” to operate that way. The suit identifies two of the officers involved in the shooting: Devon Smith and John Scanlan III. A third officer, according to Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, fired his weapon on the
night Fanta was killed, but he is not named in the lawsuit.
Law enforcement and community sources have told The Inquirer that the third officer is a rookie on the force, hired about six months before the shooting. Stollsteimer has said that all three officers fired their weapons at the car on the night of the shooting, but that it’s unclear which officer struck Fanta. The shooting also injured four other people, including Fanta’s older sister, Mawatta, and two women inside the vehicle.
Those women, who are not named in the lawsuit, were
recent graduates of Academy Park High School who drove to the stadium that night to watch the football game, according to law enforcement sources. The officers were responding to gunfire that erupted after the football game ended at Academy Park High School and spectators were leaving the stadium, according to Stollsteimer.
The DA said a group of young males were involved in an argument that escalated into a shooting on the 900 block of Coates Street, one block west of the entrance. The three officers were in an area opposite to where the spectators were leaving, and when the gunfire occurred, the car turned onto a street directly in front of the officers, Stollsteimer said.
Shell casings were recovered from the crime scene and investigators had “identified suspects and persons of interest involved in this confrontation and it is our expectation that further investigation will lead to the arrest of the individuals involved,” Stollsteimer said. The shooting is currently being investigated by a grand jury, which will determine whether criminal charges will be filed against the officers.