Family Of 8-Year-Old Shot By Police Files Lawsuit
On Aug. 27, Fanta Bility, who was only 8 years old, was shot and killed by police outside of a high school football game. The family has now filed a lawsuit.
According to CNN, the incident took place outside of Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, which is a suburb outside of Philadelphia. There was reportedly a verbal altercation between a group of young men that resulted in gunfire. There officers were standing across from the stadium exit when they fired their weapons after a car turned onto the street directly in front of them. Fanta Bility, 8, was killed. Additionally, Bility’s 12-year-old sister, a 13-year-old boy and a 20-year-old woman who was a passenger in the car were wounded.
Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer stated last month, "Our initial ballistics analysis has concluded with near certainty that four of the five gunshot victims, including Fanta Bility, were tragically struck by shots fired by the Sharon Hill police officers. We await final forensic reports.”
The lawsuit from the family, which was filed Oct. 26, states, "The occupants of the car were unarmed, engaging in no criminal activity, and did not pose any threat at all to the police officers or the community at large. The driver of the car was in fact an innocent 19-year-old woman with ... another woman of similar age in the front passenger seat."
The lawsuit also accuses the Sharon Hill police officers of shooting at people in a moving car "unreasonably" and with "a specific intent to kill." The bullets traveled "beyond the moving car into a crowd of innocent bystanders who were exiting a high school football game.”
The three police officers are on administrative leave. Sharon Hill Mayor Harry Dunfee and the police department have not responded to CNN’s request for comment.
