As 16-year-old Ralph Yarl struggled to come to grips with being shot for going to the wrong house to pick up his younger brothers, the White Kansas City, Missouri, homeowner who shot the Black teenager turned himself in on Tuesday, April 18.
Andrew Lester, 84, surrendered at the Clay County Detention Center a day after being charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. He posted bond Tuesday afternoon and was released. Some civil rights leaders urged a hate crime charge, but Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said first-degree assault is a higher-level crime with a longer sentence — up to life in prison.
Meanwhile, Yarl was home recovering from his wounds.
“Ralph is doing considerably well,” his mother, Cleo Nagbe, told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King. “Physically, mornings are hard, but his spirits are in a good place. I borrow from his spirits.”
Nagbe said the trauma remains evident. She said her son is “able to communicate mostly when he feels like it, but mostly he just sits there and stares and the buckets of tears just rolls down his eyes.”
“You can see that he is just replaying the situation over and over again, and that just doesn’t stop my tears either,” she said.
The shooting happened about 10 p.m. on Thursday, april 13. Police Chief Stacey Graves said that Yarl’s parents asked him to pick up his twin brothers at a home on 115th Terrace.
Yarl, an honor student and all-state band member, mistakenly went to 115th Street — a block away from where he meant to be. When he rang the bell, Lester came to the door and shot Yarl in the forehead — then shot him again, in the right forearm.
Lester faces arraignment Wednesday afternoon. He does not yet have a listed attorney.
Lester told police he lives alone and was “scared to death” when he saw a Black male on the porch and thought someone was trying to break in, according to the probable cause statement.
No words were exchanged before the shooting, but afterward, as Yarl got up to run, he heard Lester yell, “Don’t come around here,” the statement said.
Yarl ran to “multiple” homes asking for help before finding someone who would call the police, the statement said.
James Lynch was the neighbor who found Yarl. He didn’t immediately respond to an interview request, but his wife Tiffany confirmed an NBC News report that said Lynch heard shouting and saw Yarl banging on the door of another home.
“I heard somebody screaming, ‘Help, help, I’ve been shot!’” Lynch, who is white, told NBC. The father of three ran out and found Yarl covered in blood. Lynch checked his pulse and, when another neighbor came out with towels, helped stem the bleeding until paramedics arrived.
The shooting outraged many in Kansas City and across the country. Civic and political leaders — including President Joe Biden — demanded justice.
Biden spoke with Yarl on Monday, April 17, and invited him to the White House.
“No parent should have to worry that their kid will be shot after ringing the wrong doorbell,” Biden said on Twitter. “We’ve got to keep up the fight against gun violence.”
“And Ralph, we’ll see you in the Oval once you feel better.”
Thompson said Monday that there was a “racial component” to the shooting. He did not elaborate. But Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Alexander Higginbotham clarified in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday that “there is not a racial element to the legal charges that were filed.”
Still, some — including lawyers for Yarl’s family — pressed the racial dimension of the case.
The Missouri NAACP and other civil rights organizations rallied Tuesday at police headquarters with about 150 supporters chanting “Justice for Ralph” and demanding that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate. Lester, the activists said, received preferential treatment because he is White.
Bishop Frank Douglas of the Church of God in Christ, said the U.S. is experiencing its own version of apartheid and that if the shooter had been Black, it would have been ”lynching time.”
“We are putting a spotlight to what’s been going on for over 100 years,” Douglas said. “We got emancipation but we didn’t get love.”
The assault charge against Lester carries a penalty of up to life in prison. Lester also was charged with armed criminal action, which has a penalty range of three to 15 years in prison.
Charging Lester with a hate crime would have potentially meant a shorter sentence if he’s convicted, experts said.
Washington University School of Law Professor Peter Joy said the state hate crime law is used only to enhance low-level felony or misdemeanor charges, taking them no higher than a class-C felony level, with a penalty range of three to 10 years upon conviction.
“What the prosecutor did was charge (Lester) with the highest degree of felony they could charge him with,” Joy said.
Legal experts believe Lester’s lawyers will claim self-defense under Missouri’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows for using deadly force if a person is in fear for their life. Missouri is among roughly 30 states with such statutes.
Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York, Cortland, whose research focuses on gun policy and politics, said the Missouri law provides “wide latitude for people to use lethal force.”
St. Louis defense attorney Nina McDonnell agreed. She said prosecutors have a strong case but the Stand Your Ground law defense is a “huge hurdle” to overcome.
“The defendant was in his house and has expressed that he was in fear,” McDonnell said.
By Tuesday morning, a GoFundMe page set up for Yarl had raised $2.9 million from 77,000 donations.
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