PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The three fired Sharon Hill police officers charged with shooting and killing an 8-year-old outside a high school football game last summer are ordered to stand trial on homicide charges.
Prosecutors said that after former Sharon Hill police officers Sean Dolan, Brian Devaney, and Devon Smith heard gunshots while the crowd was leaving the Academy Park high school football game on August 27, they focused their attention on a car coming up the street from where those gunshots were fired.
25 shell casings were connected to the three former officers’ guns.
Fanta Bility, 8, was shot and killed.
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Lawyers for Dolan, Smith and Devaney argued against the charges the officers face: one count each of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, and 10 counts each of reckless endangerment.
They said the former officers' response was reasonable at the time, as they heard gunshots and felt bullets whiz by their heads as the Chevy Impala with heavily tinted windows drove toward the crowd leaving the game.
They pointed to testimony that it was a chaotic scene, and to other witnesses who said they thought they saw gunfire come from that car.
KYW Newsradio Suburban Bureau Chief Jim Melwert goes much more in-depth into the Fanta Bility case from the beginning during a recent Jawncast.
The former officers’ lawyers call it “disgusting” to come to a courtroom months later to blame the police officers when, as they put it, two teens knocked down the first domino when they fired at each other about a block from the stadium entrance.
But the judge sided with prosecutors who said that no one in that car fired shots. The judge also said that by firing at the car from where they were standing, they were also firing into the crowd they were there to protect.
The three are scheduled for a formal arraignment on March 30.
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