A Kansas City, Missouri, man detained briefly after shooting a teenage boy for ringing his doorbell has been released on a $200,000 bond, but attorneys acting on the boy’s behalf said police did not initially hold the suspect as officials claimed.
Though he is out of jail, he still faces assault charges that could possibly put him back in lockup for the rest of his life.
Andrew Lester, 85, was charged with first-degree assault for shooting 16-year-old Ralph Yarl after the teenager mistakenly approached the doorstep of his home and rang his front doorbell on Thursday, April 13.
It was late in the evening, and Ralph believed he was picking up his 11-year-old twin brothers from their friend’s home.
The friend had a similar address to Lester’s, according to reports. He rang the doorbell at the 1100 block of Northeast 115th Street instead of the 1100 block of Northeast 115th Terrace, one block away.
Prosecutors Zachary Thompson said the teenager was shot twice by Lester, who fired his .32-caliber revolver through a glass door. Ralph was shot once in his head and also in his arm, despite not crossing the octogenarian’s threshold.
One of Lester’s neighbors, James Lynch, said he heard someone shouting around 10 p.m. He looked out his window to see what was causing the commotion in his otherwise quiet community. It was then he saw the Black teenager covered in blood and banging on another neighbor’s door asking for help.
“I heard somebody screaming, ‘Help, help, I’ve been shot!’” Lynch said to NBC News.
By the time he got to the teenager, he saw how badly he was injured. He seemed to have been shot in his head near his eye socket.
“I thought he was dead,” Lynch explained.
But after realizing he was not, he relied on skills he learned as an Eagle Scout.
Lynch let the boy know he was going to grab his hand and hold it “really tight.”
He then checked to see if the boy still had a pulse before asking…
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