‘Infuriating’: Frustrations grow as man charged in Ralph Yarl shooting remains free
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Ralph Yarl shooting
After a Kansas City teenager was shot and injured for going to the door of the wrong house, outrage followed in Kansas City and across the country.
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Update: The Clay County Sheriff’s Office announced about 1:05 p.m. Tuesday that Andrew Lester surrendered himself at the county jail and was in custody.
Black community leaders in Kansas City expressed outrage Tuesday morning that an 84-year-old white man accused in the shooting Ralph Yarl, a Black teen, has not been taken into custody a day after he was charged by prosecutors and a warrant issued for his arrest.
Andrew D. Lester of Kansas City, North, was charged Monday in Clay County with first-degree assault and armed criminal action after he shot Yarl twice with a 32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Yarl had gone to Lester’s home in the Northland by mistake, intending to go to an address one street over to pick up his younger twin brothers. Lester allegedly opened fire “within a few seconds” of seeing the teen on his doorstep, according to charging documents.
The charges announced Monday came after a weekend of protest and outrage at the fact that Lester was released within two hours of being taken into custody by police after the shooting, with no charges filed over the weekend and into Monday. Local leaders and attorneys representing Yarl’s family said it was plain that race was a factor in the case of a white man shooting a Black teen.
The fact that Lester apparently remained free and his whereabouts unknown Tuesday further angered many.
“The fact that Lester is not in custody is infuriating,” said Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City. “Filing charges is only one step on the pathway to justice. It rings hollow when the assailant is not in custody and KCPD has no idea where he is. Unconscionable!”
Neither Kansas City police nor Clay County Sheriff’s Office would say Tuesday why Lester was not in custody. And neither agency acknowledged responsibility for taking action to arrest him.
In response to questions, Sarah Boyd, a spokeswoman for the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said: “No one has asked us to go serve the arrest warrant.”
Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a Kansas City Police Department spokesman, said only that the police department did not have any updated information that Lester is in custody.
“We would love to report to you that he is in custody at either our facility or Clay County and as soon as he is we will do so,” Becchina told The Star in an email.
Scrutiny of police and prosecutors
The shooting quickly gained national attention over the weekend and Monday as elected officials such as Vice President Kamala Harris and celebrities shared their thoughts on social media. Many called for criminal charges to be brought after Lester was released from police custody.
“This shows that we are less important and that equal justice in the process is not a reality for us,” said the Rev. Vernon P. Howard, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City. “The law enforcement agency responsible for the arrest is failing which starts at the top.”
During a press conference on Sunday, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves had said the criminal case had not been forwarded to prosecutors because they had not yet spoken to Yarl.
However defense attorneys in Kansas City challenged Graves’s statement because is common for police proceed with criminal charges without speaking to the victim.
The charging documents made public Monday shed further light on the decision to release Lester without charges early Friday.
The documents show that police had talked to Yarl hours after the shooting. In an email Tuesday, Becchina the police spokesman, said that it was a “cursory” interview, not a formal statement.
“A formal statement is done away from medical personnel and generally not during the course of medical treatment….generally prosecutors request a formal statement prior to making a charging decision, that is why chief said that,” Becchina wrote.
The documents, written by police detectives, say Lester was released because Clay County prosecutors thought the shooting needed further investigation.
The shooting
The shooting was first reported to police at 9:52 p.m. Thursday.
Yarl, an honor student at Staley High School, was at the wrong house by mistake when Lester, the homeowner, opened the door and shot the teenager in the head through the storm door, according to the charging documents.
As Yarl lay on the doorstep, Lester shot him a second time, in the arm.
Yarl got up and ran from the property, but he had to ask at three different homes before someone help him.
Arriving officers found Yarl sprawled in the street roughly five houses down from where the shooting occurred in the 1100 block of Northeast 115th Street.
A witness told police they heard the sound of gunfire coming from Lester’s residence shortly before Yarl could be heard screaming for help. Responding officers reported seeing Lester standing inside the house behind a shattered glass storm door.
Lester was taken into custody but was released less than two hours later, according to court documents.
If convicted on the first-degree assault charge filed against him Tuesday, Lester faces up to 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors requested he be held on a $200,000 bond.
This story was originally published April 18, 2023 at 12:28 PM.
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