(Trends Wide) — A black teenager who authorities say was shot in the head by an 84-year-old white man after taking a wrong turn in Kansas City has a favorable prognosis but still faces a long road to recovery, according to his lawyers.
In a new photo, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl is seen sitting on a bench next to attorney Lee Merritt, activist and family spokesman Shaun King posted on Instagram Wednesday.
“He’s home and looking great. Ralph is a WALKING MIRACLE with a head of steel,” King wrote in the post that Merritt republished. “If the bullet had hit his head a fraction of an inch in any other direction, he’d probably be dead right now.”
Ralph Yarl sits on a bench next to attorney Lee Merritt in a photo released Wednesday by activist and family spokesman Shaun King. Credit: Shaun King
Also Wednesday, the home’s owner, Andrew Lester, pleaded not guilty in court to charges of felony first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
Lester, who is out on $200,000 bail, tried to speak to the judge throughout the proceedings but was non-adversarial. Part of his bail conditions include reporting to the police within 24 hours and once a month thereafter. He cannot possess weapons, must surrender his passport and remain in Missouri, and has been ordered not to have any contact with Yarl or his family.
He is scheduled to appear in court again on June 1.
“Although charges have been filed, the investigation is still active,” the prosecution said in a statement. “We continue to work with law enforcement to gather any and all available evidence in this case.”
Trends Wide has not been able to reach Lester’s attorney.
The arraignment and health update comes less than a week after Lester allegedly shot Ralph in the head and arm after the teen rang the bell at the man’s residence. Police and Ralph’s family said Ralph was trying to pick up his siblings but took the wrong address.
The owner opened fire through a locked glass door without saying a word because he thought the teen was trying to force the door open and was “scared to death” because of the boy’s size, according to statements in a probable cause document obtained by Trends Wide.
The incident was one of several shootings in the past week in which youths were greeted with gunfire after apparently going to the wrong place by mistake. In rural New York, a 20-year-old woman in a wrong-drive vehicle was fatally shot by her homeowner, and in Texas, two cheerleaders were shot in a supermarket parking lot after that one of them mistook a man’s vehicle for hers.
The Kansas City case, in particular, raised new questions about the influence of race in the shooting and about law enforcement’s treatment of Lester. Clay County District Attorney Zachary Thompson stated, “There was a racial component to this case,” but did not elaborate.
Ralph’s shooting fueled protests in Kansas City and prompted a “March of Unity” in support of the teen on Tuesday by some 1,500 students at Staley High School, where he is a junior, Trends Wide affiliate KMBC reported.
The teen’s family says they expect a full recovery
Ralph Yarl support rally Tuesday outside the United States Courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri. Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP
People close to the family expressed their astonishment that Ralph has survived and is recovering well.
“On Thursday night, the doctors were scraping bullet fragments from his brain. On Saturday he was released,” Merritt told Trends Wide Tuesday night, calling his recovery a miracle.
“He has a prognosis of full recovery, minus the scarring, and long-term, perhaps, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and post-traumatic brain injury symptoms,” Merritt added.
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Ralph and his mother, Cleo Nagbe, spoke by phone with President Joe Biden on Monday night, a White House official told Trends Wide. The conversation also covered their families, their love of music and Ralph’s dream of studying chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, the official said. Vice President Kamala Harris also spoke with Ralph on Tuesday afternoon, according to Merritt.
According to King’s post, the conversation with Biden went on much longer than the family expected and included an invitation to the White House.
“It was actually a beautiful, thoughtful, meaningful and compassionate conversation,” King wrote. “The family expected the call to last 2-3 minutes, but they loved talking to each other so much that it went on for an hour. It was an amazing and special moment.”
The GoFundMe campaign started to help the Yarl family with medical expenses had raised more than $3 million from more than 80,000 separate donations as of Tuesday night, up from $2 million the night before.
“Ralph is currently home with the family. He can walk and communicate. A true miracle considering what he has survived,” Faith Spoonmore, Ralph’s aunt, posted in an update to the page.
Even so, the teenager, who plays bass clarinet and is a band leader at school, faces a long road of recovery, both emotionally and physically, according to his aunt.
“He lost a part of himself that day. A lot has changed since then. The way he’s going to walk through this world is going to be totally different because of what happened,” Spoonmore said.
Doubts about Lester’s release
This photo of Andrew Lester was taken after he turned himself in to authorities Tuesday. Credit: Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Missouri
Questions remain about why Lester was released within hours of his arrest on the night of the April 13 shooting.
That night, Ralph was asked to pick up his siblings and mistakenly went to 1100 NE 115 Street instead of 1100 NE 115 Terrace, according to statements from police and Ralph’s family.
When he got to the house, Ralph said he rang the doorbell and waited for a while before a man answered the door and immediately shot him in the head, causing him to fall, the probable cause statement says. While the teen was still on the ground, the man fired again, hitting him in the arm, Ralph told police.
Lester told police that he opened his interior door and “saw a black male approximately 6 feet tall pulling on the exterior handle of the storm door,” according to the document.
“He stated that he believed someone was trying to enter the house and fired two shots within seconds of opening the door,” the probable cause statement reads.
The boy told police he hadn’t pulled the door, according to the probable cause statement.
Police arrived just before 10 p.m. after receiving reports of a shooting. They arrived to find Ralph injured in the street. The boy had gone to neighbors for help after he was shot, according to police.
Lester was arrested and released less than two hours later, two representatives from the Kansas City Police Department’s detention unit previously told Trends Wide. Thompson, the prosecutor, said that
Lester was released because the police recognized that more investigative work needed to be done.
Merritt told Trends Wide Tuesday night that he has not received a satisfactory answer as to why the suspect was not apprehended until Tuesday, days after the shooting.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas expressed outrage and concern over the delay in the arrest, as well as his disgust that Lester was released on bail.
“I understand how these things work, but it’s horrible, it’s unfortunate, that someone who commits a crime like this, someone who I see as a threat to the public, because I don’t know what house he’s in right now,” he told Don Lemon of Trends Wide on Wednesday. “I don’t know if it’s a house where the next Amazon driver, or postal worker, or campaign worker might knock on the door, so what then? So what does anyone have to worry about?”
The mayor believes the teen was tried for his race
An image of Ralph Yarl taken from social media. Credit: Instagram
On Tuesday, Ralph’s lawyer and aunt challenged the notion that the boy’s size could have been intimidating.
Ralph is 5’7″ and weighs 130 pounds, Merritt said Tuesday night.
“He’s the least imposing guy I’ve ever come across,” Merritt said. “He’s a 16-year-old musician. He’s not known for his physical prowess.”
Spoonmore also questioned how the boy could appear threatening.
“There is no way to see fear when you look at that boy, if you really look at him and not just because of the color of his skin. It is impossible to see fear,” he declared Tuesday morning.
Lucas, the mayor, said he believes Ralph was racially profiled by the shooter.
“To pretend that race is not part of this whole situation would be to have your head in the sand,” Lucas said. “This guy was shot because he existed as a black man.”
Kansas City Councilman Eric Bunch said the interaction should not have ended in gunshots, whether or not Ralph intended to knock on Lester’s door.
“You have the right to walk up to someone’s door and ring their bell,” Bunch said. “This is a ‘stand your ground’ state, and I think unfortunately that often leads to cases like this. Add to that the implicit biases and you have a recipe for disaster.”
It is not yet clear if “stand your ground” laws will play a role in Lester’s case. These laws allow people to respond to threats or force without fear of criminal prosecution anywhere a person has a right to be.
Merritt told Trends Wide that he doesn’t think such a defense would apply, saying Ralph was never a threat.
“Those are self-defense statutes,” Merritt said Tuesday morning. “They say you have the right to protect yourself against force brought against you…he never met force. Ralph didn’t even try to open the door. He rang the bell and waited.”
— Eric Levenson, Taylor Romine, Cheri Mossburg, Paradise Afshar and Chris Boyette contributed reporting.
