Per the Kansas City Defender:
“This was not an ‘error’; this was a hate crime. You don’t shoot a child in the head because he rang your doorbell. The fact that the police said it was an ‘error’ is why America is the way it is,” said Dr. Faith Spoonmore, the aunt of Ralph Yarl.
Ralph Yarl, a 16 year old Black boy, was shot twice by a white man in North Kansas City after accidentally ringing the doorbell of the wrong home while attempting to pick up his sibling. The white man reportedly shot Ralph in the head through the glass door, then when Yarl was already bleeding out on the ground, shot him again. The family has described it as a hate crime, and community members are calling for justice for the young victim.
Reports indicate that the white man was taken to the police headquarters briefly to provide a statement but was released shortly after without charge. Yarl’s family is outraged that the perpetrator has not been held accountable.
Kansas City Police were called to a residence shortly before 10 p.m. on Thursday where the teenager was shot by a homeowner, Police Chief Stacey Graves said in a news conference Sunday. The teenager was transported to a hospital to be treated for his injuries, Graves said. She did not name the victim.
Police said the teenager’s parents asked him to pick up his siblings at a residence on 115th Terrace, in the city’s northeast, but that he instead went to a residence on 115th Street, the Kansas City Star reported.
Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Lee Merritt, who are representing Yarl and his family, said in a statement that Yarl “is alive and recovering” but that he has severe injuries. They said he was “shot twice and struck in the head and arm by an unidentified white male assailant,” and that Yarl was unarmed. The Washington Post could not independently verify those claims.
