The shooting of Ralph Yarl is being probed by Kansas Police and certain civil rights groups are asking to look into the incident’s racial aspect (Image: Twitter/@jtimberlake)
White homeowner charged after shooting Black teenager in Kansas City for ringing wrong doorbell
Andrew Lester, 85, a white homeowner in US’ Kansas City, Missouri was charged with armed assault on Monday after he shot Black teenager, Ralph Yarl, 16, twice on Thursday.
Yarl, a high school junior, was on his way to pick up his younger brothers from a play date but ended up going to a wrong address. Yarl was supposed to go to 115th Terrace but he ended up ringing the doorbell at a home on 115th Street, Faith Spoonmore, Yarl’s aunt said in a post online.
The octogenarian faces a charge of armed criminal action after shooting Ralph Yarl and protests and public outrage have mounted following the incident at both local and national level, with vice president Kamala Harris also weighing in.
The protests focused on why Lester was released initially without any charges against him. He is currently not in custody but an arrest warrant has been released for his arrest.
Yarl is currently recovering at home and was released from a Kansas City hospital on Sunday. He is being treated for gunshot wounds to his head and chest.
The documents charging Lester say that no words were exchanged before he opened fire.
The prominent civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump is representing the Ralph family and said that it is hard not to consider the “racial dynamics” of the incident while speaking to CNN.
“We can only imagine if the roles were reversed, and you have a Black man shooting a 16-year-old white child who was simply ringing his doorbell, and the police took him in for questioning and let him come home and sleep in his bed at night. How much outrage would there be in America? It’s unacceptable. We demand justice,” Crump was quoted as saying by CNN.
Stacey Graves, chief of the Kansas City police, defended the release of the homeowner but acknowledged that the case has caused a lot of frustration among the people.
Graves pointed out that Missouri law states a person can be held for only 24 hours before being formally charged or released. The Guardian in their report said Yarl suffered a fractured skull, a traumatic brain injury involving swelling, post-concussive syndrome and injuries to his arm.
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