CNN
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A White, 84-year-old homeowner charged with shooting Ralph Yarl after the Black teen went to the wrong Kansas City address to pick up his siblings told police they didn’t exchange words before he fired at him through a locked glass door – and that he did so because he thought the teen was trying to break in.
Homeowner Andrew Lester – who faces two felony charges, for assault in the first degree and armed criminal action – told police he fired immediately after answering the doorbell when he saw 16-year-old Ralph pulling on an exterior door handle, according to the probable cause document obtained by CNN.
Lester said he was “scared to death” due to the boy’s size, according to the document.
After the April 13 shooting, which left the teenage boy with gunshot wounds to his head and arm, Ralph told police while he was hospitalized that he did not pull on the door, according to the document.
It was “nothing short of a miracle” that Ralph was discharged from the hospital, but “he’s not out of the woods yet,” his attorney Ben Crump told CNN on Monday.
The shooting of the unarmed Black teenager captured national attention as it drew outrage online and fueled protests in Kansas City. Protesters have marched through the city chanting, “Justice for Ralph” and calling for the shooter’s arrest.
Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson has said that “there was a racial component to this case,” but did not elaborate.
Lester was not in custody as of Monday night, though a warrant has been issued for his arrest, according to authorities.
On the night of the shooting, the 84-year-old man was taken into custody but was released less than two hours later, two representatives at the Kansas City Police Department detention unit previously told CNN. Thompson said Lester was released because police recognized that more investigative work needed to be done.
Attorney Crump told CNN’s Jake Tapper Monday that it makes no sense the shooter hasn’t been arrested.
“Nobody can tell us if the roles were reversed, and you had a Black man shoot a White 16-year-old teenager for merely ringing his doorbell that he would not be arrested,” Crump said. “I mean, this citizen went home and slept in his bed at night after shooting that young Black kid in the head.”
“He merely rang the doorbell. That was it,” Crump said. “And the owner of the home shoots through the door, hitting him in the head and then shoots him a second time.”
CNN has not been able to reach the homeowner for comment. A lawyer was not listed in his previous booking report.
On the night of the shooting, Lester was lying down in bed when he heard the doorbell ring and picked up his .32 caliber revolver, Lester told police, according to a probable cause statement.
He then went to his home’s front entrance, which includes an interior door and a glass exterior door – both of which were locked.
Lester opened the interior door and “saw a black male approximately 6 feet tall pulling on the exterior storm door handle,” Lester told police.
“He stated he believed someone was attempting to break into the house, and shot twice within a few seconds of opening the door,” the probable cause statement reads.
“He believed he was protecting himself from a physical confrontation and could not take the chance of the male coming in,” the document reads.
Lester said he immediately called 911 after the shooting, according to the document.
Police spoke with Ralph while he was being treated at a hospital, where he told them his mother asked him to pick up his brothers at 1100 NE 115th Street, according to the document, which notes the actual address they were staying at was 1100 NE 115th Terrace.
When he arrived at the house on 115th Street, Ralph said he rang the doorbell and waited a while before a man eventually opened the door and immediately shot him in the head, causing him to fall, the document says.
While the teenager was still on the ground, the man then fired again, shooting him in the arm, Ralph told police.
Ralph said he got up and ran to keep from being shot, and he heard the man say, “Don’t come around here,” the document says. He then went to multiple nearby homes asking for help and telling people to call police.
The boy told police he did not pull on the door, according to the probable cause statement.
Officers responded to the scene just before 10 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting. When they arrived, they found the boy wounded in the street.
Responding officers also found the front storm door glass at Lester’s home broken, with blood on the front porch and the driveway, according to the probable cause document.
A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, told CNN she called 911 after Ralph came to her door, bleeding.
Since the shooter’s location was unknown at the time, she was directed to stay inside her home by the emergency operator for her safety. She said she complied initially, then went outside with towels to help suppress the bleeding.
“This is somebody’s child. I had to clean blood off of my door, off of my railing. That was someone’s child’s blood. I’m a mom … this is not OK,” she said.
Crump said Ralph is still struggling with the trauma from the ordeal, but the family hopes for a full recovery because Ralph is young and strong.
“He and his family are just happy that he’s alive after being shot in the head,” Crump told CNN.
Ralph, a section leader in a marching band who could often be found with an instrument in hand, had been looking forward to graduating from high school and visiting West Africa before starting college, according to a GoFundMe started by Ralph’s aunt, Faith Spoonmore.
“Life looks a lot different right now. Even though he is doing well physically, he has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally. The trauma that he has to endure and survive is unimaginable,” the aunt wrote in the fundraiser.
The GoFundMe page, started to help the family with medical expenses, had garnered more than $2 million in donations by Monday night.
Crump likened Ralph’s shooting to the shootings of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida and 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia – two unarmed Black Americans who were fatally shot by assailants who later claimed self defense.
“We continue to fight to say you can’t profile and shoot our children, just because you have this ‘stand your ground’ law,” Crump said. “Unacceptable.”
“Stand your ground” laws allow people to respond to threats or force without fear of criminal prosecution in any place where a person has the right to be. It remains unclear whether this will play a role in Lester’s case.
Lee Merritt, another attorney representing Ralph and his family, told CNN Monday that the “stand your ground” action would not apply to Ralph’s case.
“The stand your ground action, under the laws of Missouri, are completely inapplicable to this case, because there has been no conversation, not from the suspect, not from the victim and not from law enforcement, that Ralph Yarl, at 16 years old, ever posed a threat to this shooter,” Merritt said.
