Ralph Yarl speaks out on moment white man shot him for knocking on door
Ralph Yarl, the Kansas City teenager who was shot after going to the wrong house to pick up his siblings, has described his ordeal.
Speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday, Yarl, who is Black, said he thought there was no way that the white man pointing the gun at him through the glass door would shoot him.
But Yarl, who was looking for his younger brothers, was wrong a second time.
Yarl’s brothers were actually at a home a block away. Describing the April incident, he told the ABC anchor Robin Roberts he hadn’t met the family of his brothers’ friends, “so maybe it was their house”.
After ringing the doorbell, he said, he waited a long time on the porch before the door opened.
“I see this old man and I’m saying, ‘Oh, this must be like, their grandpa,’” said Yarl, who is now 17. “And then he pulls out his gun. And I’m like, ‘Whoa!’ So I like, back up. He points it at me.”
Yarl braced and turned his head.
“And then it happened, and then I’m on the ground. I fall on the glass, the shattered glass”, and “then before I know it, I’m running away, shouting, ’Help me! Help me!’”
Yarl was bleeding. He said he wondered how it was possible he had been shot in the head. The man he had never met before said only five words, he said: “Don’t come here ever again.”
Andrew Lester, 84, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
Lester said he shot Yarl through the door without warning because he was “scared to death” he was about to be robbed. He remains free after posting $20,000 – 10% of his $200,000 bond.
The shooting drew international attention amid claims Lester received preferential treatment. Joe Biden and several celebrities called for justice. Yarl’s attorney, Lee Merritt, has called for the shooting to be investigated as a hate crime.
Yarl’s mother, Cleo Nagbe, told ABC she got a call from police, telling her about the shooting. In hospital, he was partially alert. Ten weeks later, Yarl said he has headaches and trouble sleeping and sometimes his mind is foggy.
“You’re looking at a kid that took the SAT when he was in eighth grade and now his brain is slowed,” Nagbe said. “So physically he looks fine. But there’s a lot that has been taken from him.”
Yarl said he was seeing a therapist and hoped to continue his recovery by focusing on his passions for chemical engineering and for music.
“I’m just a kid and not larger than life because this happened to me,” Yarl said. “I’m just going to keep doing all the stuff that makes me happy. And just living my life the best I can, and not let this bother me.”