The white Kansas City homeowner who shot 16-year-old honors student Ralph Yarl for going to the wrong house to pick up his siblings claimed to police that he “believed someone was attempting to break into the house” because the teen pulled on his door handle—something prosecutors say Ralph disputed in an interview from his hospital bed.
Andrew Lester, 84, is facing charges of assault in the first degree and armed criminal action, Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson said Monday. Lester was taken into custody on Tuesday after surrendering at the Clay County Detention Center, according to the sheriff’s office.
“There was a racial component to the case,” Thompson said, but did not elaborate. When asked why Lester was not being charged with attempted murder, Thompson explained that the possible sentence under assault was more severe.
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A probable cause affidavit released Monday evening by the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office says police were dispatched to Lester’s home at 9:52 p.m. on April 13.
Yarl was found “in the street” a few doors down, according to the affidavit.
“I observed the front storm door glass broken with blood on the front porch,” Det. Dennis Paquette stated in the document. “I observed blood on the driveway... I also observed blood in the street in front of [a nearby home].”
Lester, who was standing inside his house, allowed officers to search the home. Cops spoke to a witness who said they heard a vehicle pull into Lester’s driveway at around 9:50 p.m., and said they thought it “odd” for the elderly man to have a visitor so late. The witness, who did not see the shooting, said they then heard two to three gunshots, followed by someone screaming that they had been shot, the affidavit states.
Crime scene technicians recovered a .32 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver on a chair in the living room, with two spent rounds in the cylinder and live rounds in the remaining chambers, according to the affidavit. They also took a hard drive connected to the home’s security cameras, but found the footage was “no longer functional.”
In an interview with investigators shortly before 11:30 p.m., Lester said he’d just got into bed when he heard the doorbell. Lester picked up his gun before going to answer it, and claimed he saw a “Black male approximately 6 feet tall pulling on the storm door handle,” the affidavit says.
“[H]e believed someone was attempting to break into the house, and shot twice within a few seconds of opening the door,” it continues, adding that Lester insisted he had been “scared to death.”
Detectives were able to interview Yarl in the hospital on April 14, according to the affidavit. He told cops he walked up to the door and rang the bell, then waited—but never pulled on the handle. When Lester showed up, Yarl said he “was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground,” then he was shot in the arm as he lay there, wounded.
“Don’t come around here,” Yarl said Lester told him as he got up and ran away “to keep from being shot” a third time.
Lester, a former aircraft mechanic, was taken to the KCPD’s East Patrol unit but after he was booked and fingerprinted, he was released pending further investigation.
In a statement, civil rights attorneys Lee Merritt and Ben Crump, who are jointly representing Yarl’s family, said, “Moments after the family got off the phone with President Biden, who offered his prayers for Ralph’s health and for justice, we learned that the prosecutor will be charging the man who is responsible for the deplorable shooting of this innocent boy.”
The lawyers called for an end to gun violence against unarmed Black people, adding, “While this is certainly a step in the right direction, we will continue to fight for Ralph while he works towards a full recovery.”
The charges were issued just hours after a representative for Yarl’s family accused local police of not being honest about why they they hadn’t yet arrested Lester, who at that point had not been named.
Merritt said in a social media post on Monday that Ralph gave a bedside interview to investigators while hospitalized on Friday, directly contradicting a narrative offered by police that no arrest had yet been made because cops had thus far been unable to take a victim statement.
Merritt also said the alleged shooter was detained for two hours, not 24 hours, as KCPD Chief Stacey Graves said previously.
“I cannot say for certain why the appropriate arrest hasn’t been made by law enforcement,” Merritt said. “I can say with absolute certainty the excuses being offered are not true.”
Thompson’s Monday press conference came less than two hours after Kansas City police said they’d submitted their case files to the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office to weigh potential charges.
Ralph’s grandfather, Sebastian Nagbe, told The Daily Beast in a text message on Monday that his grandson was “hanging in there.”
The talented musician and aspiring scientist “continues to improve,” is responsive, and is home after spending three nights in the hospital, his father, Paul Yarl, told The Kansas City Star. Yarl added that Ralph’s mother, a nurse, took time off from work to tend to her son.
Ralph went to pick up his younger brothers from a friend’s house on April 13, according to an April 14 video posted to TikTok by Ralph’s aunt, Faith Spoonmore. However, she said Ralph did not have his phone to figure out the directions and pulled into the driveway of the wrong house. The house he was looking for was on 115th Terrace but he mistakenly went to 115th Street, one block over.
“A man opened up the door, looked [Ralph] in the eye, and said, ‘Don’t ever come back here,’ as he shot him in the head,” Spoonmore, on the brink of tears, said in the video. “My nephew fell down, and the man shot him again.”
@ahealthymixture I pray to someday let go of the hate and anger I feel right now. Kids are in more danger going to school, going to the store, and going to church. However, black people/ boys are in danger just because they are born black. What the hell is that? Please keep all the prayers coming. We truly need it not just for recovery but for forgiveness. Thank you #kcmo #blacklivesmatter #racisminamerica #racism #guncontrol #kcmom #kansascitymo #kcblogger #kansascityblogger #foxnews #fox4kc #kidsdeservebetter #blackpeoplearetired ♬ original sound - Faith Spoonmore
Spoonmore said that her nephew had to get up and run to three different neighbors’ homes for help. When he finally reached the third house, she said, someone agreed to help him after forcing him at gunpoint to put his hands up and lie on the ground.
“He laid on the ground like he passed out before the neighbor called the police for help,” Spoonmore said. “...You hear these stories about racism in America but you have this little bit of hope because you feel like it’s so far away, it would never happen to your family. It would never happen to you. But God, the people in this country are sick.”
“It’s so hard to believe that this amount of hate lives in people,” she continued. “This is America.”
Lester was taken into police custody for a 24-hour hold, but was released “due to the need to obtain a formal statement from the victim,” Police Chief Graves said Sunday.
However, Crump and Merritt said there was no reason for Lester to have been released.
“There is no excuse for the release of this armed and dangerous suspect after admitting to shooting an unarmed, non-threatening, and defenseless teenager that rang his doorbell,” the attorneys said Monday. “We demand swift action from…prosecutors and law enforcement to identify, arrest, and prosecute to the full extent of the law the man responsible for this horrendous and unjustifiable shooting.”
Michael Kelly, a family friend whose wife works in oncology at a hospital with Ralph’s mother, told The Daily Beast that he was “baffled” by the shooting.
“This is your neighbor,” Kelly said, adding that he “definitely” felt racism was a factor in the shooting. “If this was a white woman at night, would [the neighbor] have shot her? I 100 percent doubt it.”
And although Graves acknowledged the “racial components” of the shooting while saying Sunday that investigators did not have evidence it was racially motivated, another neighbor who wished to remain anonymous told The Daily Beast that race was “a component.”
“Ferguson was here,” she said, referencing the fatal shooting of Mike Brown at the hands of police. “It just sucks. …I hope [the shooter] gets charged. Regardless of what his reasoning was for doing it, there is no good reason to ever do that to somebody.”
The neighborhood is a mixed one, the neighbor continued, noting there are “kids of all races” living there. The street names are confusing, and mail is delivered to the wrong homes on a regular basis. It would be “super easy” for a person to confuse one for the other, according to the neighbor. “I just want to make sure the world doesn’t think every neighbor here is okay with this shit happening,” she said.
In a statement on Monday, North Kansas City Schools Superintendent Dan Clemens described Ralph as “an excellent student and talented musician. He maintains a stellar GPA while taking mostly college level courses. While he loves science and hopes to pursue that career path, his passion is music. Thankfully, we know he is now recovering alongside family.”
Clemens said he was experiencing “anger, frustration, shock and disbelief” over the incident that nearly took the Staley High School junior’s life, and vowed to provide “additional resources” this week at all schools throughout the district.
A hospital employee who works with Ralph’s mother told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that a group of coworkers pooled their money together to buy the teen a piano, which was delivered to his home on Sunday. They hope the instrument will be helpful as a form of physical therapy as Ralph continues to heal, she said.
In a GoFundMe page organized by Spoonmore, who did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment, she described her nephew as a “fantastic kid” who plays several instruments and looked forward to majoring in chemical engineering in college.
“Life looks a lot different right now,” Spoonmore wrote.
The fundraiser had already raised $1.7 million by Monday afternoon.
If convicted, Lester faces life in prison.
