Black teenager is shot after going to wrong house to pick up brothers

The shooting of a Black teenager who rang the wrong doorbell at a house in Kansas City, Missouri, last week led to calls over the weekend for police to file charges against the white homeowner who opened fire, critically injuring him.

The teenager, Ralph Yarl, 16, was hospitalized with two gunshot wounds, including one to the head, according to his family and their lawyers. They said he had been sent to pick up his younger twin brothers at a friend’s house on Thursday evening but mistakenly went to the wrong house about a block away.

The man who shot him was taken into custody, held for 24 hours and released with no charges, although police said the case was still under investigation. On Sunday, family members joined hundreds of demonstrators who marched to the house where Yarl was shot, calling for justice, local news stations reported.

“We recognize the frustration this can cause in the entire criminal justice process,” Chief Stacey Graves of the Kansas City Police Department said at a news conference Sunday while a protest was happening. “I do recognize the racial components of this case and I do recognize and understand the community’s concern.”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who is Black, said in an interview Monday that he was “heartbroken and angry about the situation we find ourselves in.”

“You’ve heard about driving while Black,” Lucas said. “You’ve heard about all the other issues that Black people confront in life. Can you not knock on the door while Black? It’s almost like you can’t exist.”

He said he would encourage “an expeditious conclusion of at least the beginning of an investigation,” and would urge the police department to share evidence with the Clay County prosecuting attorney’s office.

Police, prosecutors, lawyers and family members did not respond Monday morning to requests for more details about the investigation and Yarl’s current condition.

Most of the details about the shooting have come from family members and their lawyers, Ben Crump and S. Lee Merritt. “There can be no excuse for the release of this armed and dangerous suspect after admitting to shooting an unarmed, nonthreatening and defenseless teenager that rang his doorbell,” the lawyers wrote in a joint statement Sunday.

Crump linked to a fundraising page started by Yarl’s aunt, Faith Spoonmore, who wrote that her nephew, a high school junior, did not have his phone with him when he went to get his brothers.

“He mistakenly went to the wrong house, one block away from the house where his siblings were,” she wrote. The Kansas City Star and other local media outlets reported that Yarl intended to go to an address on Northeast 115th Terrace and ended up ringing a doorbell at an address on Northeast 115th Street instead.

She said that her nephew pulled into the driveway and rang the doorbell and that the man who came to the door shot Yarl in the head. Police did not say where Yarl was wounded.

“My nephew fell to the ground, and the man shot him again,” Spoonmore wrote. “Ralph was then able to get up and run to the neighbor’s house, looking for help. Unfortunately, he had to run to three different homes before someone finally agreed to help him after he was told to lie on the ground with his hands up.”

Graves said police were called to the scene about 10 p.m. During the news conference, an investigator declined to say whether it was the homeowner who had called 911.

The man who opened fire was released after being held for the maximum 24-hour period allowed without charges under state law in a felony investigation, the chief said at the news conference.

Graves also said there was a “potential” self-defense or “stand your ground” element that investigators were examining. She did not say how many times the teenager had been shot.

Lucas said that Missouri’s “stand your ground” law, which was adopted in 2016, should not apply in this case.

“If stand your ground really lets somebody just shoot somebody that rings a doorbell,” he said, “that put the life of every postal worker, every campaigner, every Amazon delivery person at risk in this country.”

Detectives are continuing to look into the case for Clay County prosecutors to review, Graves said. Yarl is expected to give a formal statement to investigators when his injuries allow, she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.