An 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting a Black teenager who mistakenly rang the doorbell at the wrong home surrendered to police on Tuesday, officials said.
“Andrew Lester, charged in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, has surrendered at our Detention Center and is in custody,” the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “He is in the booking process right now.”
Lester, of Kansas City, Missouri, was charged Monday with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action, both of which are felonies, in the Thursday night shooting of Ralph Yarl, the Clay County prosecuting attorney has said.
Yarl, 16, had gone to gone to the wrong address to pick up his siblings around 10 p.m., and he was shot through a glass door after ringing the doorbell, according to a probable cause statement filed by police.
Lester told investigators that he had gone to bed when the doorbell rang, and he went to the door armed with a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, police wrote in that document.
Lester said he saw a Black male he didn’t know pulling on the exterior storm door handle, and thought his home was being broken into, the probable cause statement says.
Lester said he fired twice through the glass door, it says. Lester “stated it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was ‘scared to death,’” police wrote.
Yarl was also interviewed at the hospital, and said that he did not pull on the door, and that he was waiting at the door after ringing the bell when a man opened the door holding a firearm, the probable cause document says.
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Yarl “stated he was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground,” police wrote. The teenager told police that he was again shot, this time in the arm, and ran, according to the document. Yarl reported to police that he heard a voice say “Don’t come around here,” police wrote.
Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said there was a racial component to the case. Lester is white.
Yarl has since been released from the hospital, an attorney for his family said.
The shooting sparked protests in Kansas City. Actor Halle Berry was among those who spoke out. “This could be your child. This should NOT happen,” the actor wrote in an Instagram post Monday.
Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Lee Merritt said Monday that President Joe Biden had spoken with the Yarl family by phone.
After the shooting Lester was taken into police custody but was later released. Police wrote in the probable cause document that the prosecutor’s office advised that he be released pending further investigation.
Thompson said Monday that a warrant had been issued for Lester’s arrest and bond set at $200,000.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
