Andrew D. Lester, the 84-year-old man accused of shooting Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager, in Kansas City, Missouri, turned himself in to the authorities on Tuesday, a day after he was charged with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action.
Andrew D. Lester, the 84-year-old man accused of shooting Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager, in Kansas City, Missouri, turned himself in to the authorities on Tuesday, a day after he was charged with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action.
Lester, who is white, was in police custody early Tuesday afternoon, the sheriff’s department in Clay County, Missouri, announced.
Lester, who lives in a quiet neighborhood on the northern edge of Kansas City, is charged with shooting Ralph twice on Thursday night after the teenager stood on Lester’s front porch, having arrived at the wrong address to pick up his siblings.
On Monday, the authorities submitted the case to the Clay County prosecuting attorney’s office. The prosecutor, Zachary Thompson, said “there was a racial component to the case,” but declined to elaborate.
Here’s what we know, and don’t know, about the shooting.
What happened?
On Thursday evening, Ralph was sent to pick up his younger twin brothers at a friend’s house. He mixed up the address and went to Northeast 115 Street instead of Northeast 115th Terrace, which is one block away.
Lester answered the door, the authorities said, and shot the 16-year-old in the forehead and in the right arm.
Thompson said that Ralph did not “cross the threshold” into the home and that shots were fired through a glass door from a .32-caliber handgun. There was no indication that “any words were exchanged,” Thompson said.
According to a criminal complaint filed on Monday, Lester told a police officer after the shooting that he saw a Black male “pulling on the exterior storm door handle,” and that he believed the person was attempting to break into his house.
