Ralph Yarl—the Black teenager who was shot in the head and arm after ringing the wrong doorbell—has made his first public appearance since his shooting. You might remember that it took an infuriating few days, but Yarl’s shooter has since been arrested, and is awaiting trial.
Yarl was joined by his family and friends at Going the Distance for Brain Injury, a yearly Memorial Day race in Kansas City, Missouri. He and his loved ones were other supporters wearing neon green “Team Ralph” t-shirts.
It’s important for Ralph to see that he is not alone,” said Yarl’s aunt Faith Spoonmore in an interview with The Kansas City Star. “We want him to see there are people still living good lives even after this. That’s the part we’re most grateful for. There’s still hope.”
Yarl was shot after mistakenly going to the home of Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white man. Yarl was on the way to pick up his siblings and confused Lester’s address with the house that his siblings were staying at only a block away. After being shot in the head, Yarl was able to miraculously walk to the door of multiple neighboring houses before someone finally chose not to ignore him and applied pressure to his wounds to slow his bleeding while calling 911. Andrew Lester told police that he was “scared to death” when Yarl rang the doorbell, and was afraid that Yarl was attempting to break into his house. Lester shot the teen twice through a locked glass door, turned himself in at a detention center, and was released a few hours later.
Yarl’s shooting sparked national outrage and added more fuel to the fire for protestors fighting for increased gun legislation. Yarl’s tragic shooting was just one of many accidental shootings that occurred in 2023. In upstate New York, a young woman named Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed by 65-year-old Kevin Monohan after mistakenly turning into his driveway while searching for a friend’s house. Days after Yarl’s shooting, hundreds of protestors arrived at shooter Andrew Lester’s house in a public demonstration. Yarl’s classmates also staged a walk-out in support of him. For many of Yarl’s supporters, the shooting was all too similar to the killings of Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery, two young Black men who were killed by shooters who later claimed to have acted in self-defense.
Many believe that Lester was given preferential treatment by police, who released him only two hours after he surrendered himself to law enforcement. He was finally arrested for real five days later. Kaylin Gillis’ shooter was arrested on the same day. Many believe that Yarl’s shooting was racially motivated and that the police were slow to arrest Yarl’s shooter because the teen is Black and Andrew Lester is white. According to Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney representing the Yarl family, Yarl was shot “because he was armed with nothing other than his Black skin.” Attorney Ben Crump concurred with Lee Merritt’s statement, telling CNN, “Nobody can tell us if the roles were reversed, and you had a Black man shoot a white 16-year-old teenager for merely ringing his doorbell that he would not be arrested. I mean, this citizen went home and slept in his bed at night after shooting that young Black kid in the head”.
While Yarl was able to both miraculously survive the shooting and maintain motor functioning, the teen still suffers from serious migraines and balance issues. He also struggles with his emotions and mood regulation, as well as mental trauma from the shooting.
“It takes a community. It takes a family. It takes a support group, all of that,” said Yarl’s mother Cleo Nagbe before the race. “Let’s raise more awareness to stop the things that cause brain injuries and should not be causing them, especially gun violence.”
As for Yarl himself, he is anxious for his life to return to normal. According to his aunt, Yarl is excited to return to school and band practice. He now attends a few classes a week, but is not yet well enough to return to school full-time. “Ralph really doesn’t have a whole bunch of physical limitations. It’s more about the wounds you really can’t see and really don’t know how to heal,” she told The Star. “He shows progress and changes as each day comes along. The goal and prayer is that with therapy and with physical therapy, we hope that all of these different symptoms will dissolve and improve.”
Yarl’s mother is cautiously hopeful for her son’s recovery as well, and is adjusting to the reality of her son’s injury. “A brain injury is a process, not an event. It takes time,” she said. “There are emotional ups and downs. You have concentration problems, the ‘I want to stay in my room all day.’ You have all of that.”
Yarl has received an outpouring of support across the country, including from celebrities and the Biden Administration. Alicia Keys surprised Yarl and his classmates with free tickets to her upcoming concert in St. Louis and offered to cover the cost of transportation as well.
As soon as Yarl returned from the hospital, his family showed him the positive social media messages he was sent as well as the donations that his GoFundMe received to cover his medical expenses. “I’d read the messages I got on Instagram to him from people all over the world, from different countries,” said Yarl’s mother. “He would say, “I don’t even know where that is!’ After all the love and support started to pour in he said, ‘Wow, that is pretty cool.’ All of these people from across the ocean, far, far away supporting him. That really showed him, wow, a lot of people are sick and tired of this nonsense.”
We are sick and tired of all of this nonsense. America has an increasingly disturbing problem with gun violence and racially motivated attacks. The shooting of Ralph Yarl was far from the first time an innocent Black teen was attacked by an aggravated man with a gun. And if societal change doesn’t happen soon, it’s all too likely that he won’t be the last.
(via The Kansas City Star, featured image: Chase Castor/Getty Images)
