MEDIA, Pa. (AP) — A man who was 15 when he was involved in a gunbattle outside a high school football game that ultimately led to the death of an 8-year-old girl has been sentenced to 14 to 28 years in prison.
Nineteen-year-old Angelo Ford was sentenced Friday in Delaware County in several cases including attempted murder, aggravated assault and related convictions stemming from the 2021 gunfire in Sharon Hill that culminated in the death of Fanta Bility.
Prosecutors said Ford and a group of other males got into an argument while leaving an Academy Park High School football game in August 2021. Ford, then 15, pulled a handgun and exchanged shots with a 21-year-old man about a block away from the stadium, firing five times as the other person fired twice, authorities said.
Authorities said two shots went in the direction of three Sharon Hill police officers monitoring the crowd leaving the game. The officers returned fire toward a car they believed was involved, and one of the rounds hit Bility, who was leaving the game with her family, authorities said.
“There is no loss of life that night if AJ Ford doesn’t bring a gun,” Deputy District Attorney Laurie Moore said. “Fanta would still be here. She’d be 11 years old.”
Moore sought a term of 32 to 67 years, citing the trauma of the child’s family and the community. She also said Ford had never displayed any remorse, fleeing a juvenile facility after arrest and eluding police for more than a year as he posted Instagram videos taunting his pursuers and waving guns around.
“He hasn’t accepted responsibility for his actions,” Moore said, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. “He hasn’t thought once about anyone but AJ Ford in the history of this case.”
The other person involved in the shooting was sentenced to 32 to 64 months in prison. The three officers were fired and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. They were sentenced last year to five years of probation with the first 11 months on house arrest.
Defense attorney Mary Beth Welch sought leniency for Ford, arguing for a sentence similar to the one imposed on the other shooting defendant. She said her client had struggled with a traumatic childhood, behavioral disorders and learning disabilities, and also fell under the influence of a street gang.
“You don’t need to punish him anymore,” Welch said. “A long sentence will break him, and these charges will be a life sentence. He needs an opportunity to start over.”
Ford read a short statement in which he apologized to the victims, their families and his own family, saying the case "took away my youth, I do not want it to take away my life,” the Delaware County Daily Times reported.
Judge G. Michael Green said Friday he wasn’t blaming Ford for the child’s death, but the defendant had “played a significant role” by firing on the crowded street. Ford’s sentence covered the shooting as well as assault, terroristic threats and weapons and other counts lodged against him while he was incarcerated in the county jail.
Green said he believed Ford could be rehabilitated and his statement was a “tremendous beginning,” but the gravity of his actions outside the stadium and thereafter warranted a lengthy sentence. Ford was given credit time for about two years already served.