Clay County, Missouri prosecutor Zachary Thompson has announced two felony charges against 16- year-old Ralph Yarl’s shooter.
On the night of Thursday, April 13, Ralph went to 115th terrace, an address he mistook for 115th street to pick up his two younger siblings. Moments after he rang the doorbell, he was shot twice by Andrew Lester, the 84-year-old homeowner.
While bleeding from his injuries, Ralph made his way to a different house nearby to ask for help. The woman who came to his aid said the 911 phone operator instructed her to stay inside as the whereabouts of the shooter was unknown, and her life could also be in danger.
The woman was interviewed by CNN and asked for her identity to be hidden. In a detailed report obtained by the interviewer, she first complied with the instructions, then went outside to help suppress Ralph’s bleeding.
“I kneeled down next to him, and I said what’s your name … Who shot you?” Ralph explained he “was supposed to pick up my brothers,” the woman said. “We figured out then he went to the wrong street, which is no excuse for what happened,” she added. “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.”
In a probable cause statement taken by officers that visited Ralph in the hospital on Friday, they wrote, “(He) stated the male inside took a long time but finally opened the door holding a firearm. He stated he was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground.”
Ralph was shot in the left forehead, then again in his right arm according to the statement.
During the weekend that followed the shooting, the victim’s family and community demonstrated outside Lester’s house calling for charges to be pressed, and his immediate arrest.
On Monday afternoon, Kansas City Mayor Quentin Lucas tweeted, “I spoke this afternoon with the mother of Ralph Yarl, a child who never should have been in harms way merely going to a door to pick up his siblings. I shared with her my personal commitment to ensuring we find justice for her son, her family, and all hurting now in our City.”
In the evening of Monday, April 17, Clay County, Missouri, Prosecutor Zachary Thompson announced in a televised event that charges have been brought against 84 year old Andrew Lester.
As stated by Thompson, “in count one, the defendant Andrew D Lester is charged with a class A felony of assault in the first degree,…In count two, the defendant is charged with armed criminal action.”
Lester could face life in prison on account of the first charge, and between 3-15 years on account of the second charge, if found guilty.