The Ralph Yarl shooting – and what happened after – must be a wake up call

When a Black child is shot for ringing a doorbell, alarms ought to go off

(AP)

It should not take a national PR campaign featuring America’s most powerful political leaders and biggest celebrities for an obvious crime to be prosecuted.

Last week, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl mistakenly rang the doorbell of a home on 115th Street in Kansas City, Missouri, when the homeowner, 84-year-old Andrew Lester, allegedly opened fire on him through a glass screen door using a .32 caliber revolver.

Yarl, Black, was only looking to collect his little brothers from a friend’s house when Lester, white, confronted him and told him “Don’t come back around here” as he proceeded to shoot him in the head, cracking his skull and reportedly leaving him with a critical brain injury. As Yarl bled out on the ground, Lester shot him once again in the arm.

Yarl’s relatives told local reporters that after Yarl miraculously managed to get up, he sought help from three separate homes before someone finally assisted him.

I have been fortunate enough to have visited Kansas City because of my books. It is a lovely city with a booming Black arts scene and good BBQ. Yet, I did notice during my time there – and was frequently stressed to me as it so often is, particularly in certain parts of America – how segregated the city remains and how much racism permeates.

What happened to Ralph Yarl and what has happened since then speaks to that division – and how violent and unjust it remains.

When an old white man shoots a Black child for ringing his doorbell, some alarm bells ought to go off – especially for those responsible for prosecuting crimes.

Lester was indeed taken into custody after the shooting and placed on a 24-hour hold. As mandated by state law, a person suspected of a felony must be charged under that period or be released. Everything about this screams crime and racism yet it appears Lester was released after less than two hours.

It took days and a national outcry including the likes of President Joe Biden and A-list celebrities like Halle Berry, Kerry Washington, Naomi Campbell and Gwyneth Paltrow, but days later, finally Lester was charged with two crimes in the April 13th shooting.

On Monday, Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson announced that Lester has been charged with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action.

At the press conference, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said she “do[es] recognise the racial components of this case.” Thompson, too, said there was a “racial component” to the shooting, but clarified that nothing in the charging documents says the shooting was racially motivated.

Obviously – so why not charge as such?

As revealed in court documents, Lester told police officers that he saw a Black male pulling on the exterior door handle and thought he was trying to break in.

He claimed to be “scared to death” at the boy’s size and feared he would be unable to defend himself because he’s elderly. So, the old and scared man fired twice – not even exchanging any words with Ralph.

The racial component to this case is that an old white man with a fear and contempt of Black people opened shot a kid in the head for ringing his doorbell, and because police officers and prosecutors engage in similar racial profiling, they let him go on his way.

For what it’s worth, Yarl’s aunt, Faith Spoonmore, questioned why Lester would be so intimidated by her nephew’s size.

“I really don’t understand how,” Spoonmore told CNN. “I doubt Ralph is even 170 pounds. Ralph is not even 6 feet (tall).”

She said the criminal charges have brought some comfort to the family, but, “It’s not as simple as turning a page. It’s a little better that he is – hopefully – going to get part of what he deserves.”

Spoonmore said of her nephew’s plight, “I want justice to look the same across the board. I want justice to look the same.”

I hope so, but we’re off to a predictably bad start.

I share concerns that Lester will cite Missouri’s stand-your-ground law to avoid consequences. Those laws allow people to respond to threats or force without fear of criminal prosecution in any place where a person has the right to be.

Those laws help guise racial violence under the veneer of self-defense as it has for people like George Zimmerman. And, as we continue to see in the Jayland Walker shooting, many cops continue to get away with killing Black people.

Meanwhile, days before Ralph Yarl was shot, Kaylin Gillis, a 20-year-old woman, was shot and killed in upstate New York after she and three others accidentally turned into the wrong driveway.

Her shooter, 65-year-old Kevin Monahan, was charged with second-degree murder. He was taken into custody and charges were filed immediately. It did not take social media posts from some of the most famous people on the planet and the president of the United States of America – and all the stress on the local prosecutor from the public such attention yields – for Gillis to get justice.

Her lost life deserves that without issue, but while both shootings ultimately boil down to the gun problem in America, the “racial component” to how justice is dispensed in these cases can’t be ignored.