A black teenager, Ralph Yarl, who survived a gunshot to the head, has secured a spot in the all-state band months after the shooting. Yarl’s story made several headlines as a white man shot him in Missouri for mistakenly ringing the wrong doorbell.
According to reports, it happened on April 13th, 2023, when Yarl was trying to pick up his brothers from a friend’s home. Unknowingly, he went to the wrong Kansas City address, and that was where it all happened.
He was supposed to pick his brothers up from a home at Northeast 115th Terrace but mistakenly went to Northeast 115th Street, just a block away. Andrew Lester, whose house he went to, assumed that he was a burglar or a robber. “He only said five words: ‘Don’t come here ever again,’” Yarl recalled in a June interview with ABC News.
Immediately after that, Lester shot him through the door. This was a very surprising occurrence for the teenager as he did not expect Lester to shoot on sight. “I hear the door open. I see this old man, and I’m assuming, ‘Oh, this must be like their grandpa,’ and then he pulls out his gun, and I’m like, whoa!” Yarl told ABC.
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“So I back up. He points it at me. So I kind of, like, brace, and I turn my head. I’m thinking, there’s no way he’s actually going to shoot, right? The door (isn’t) even open. He’s going to shoot through his glass door, and glass is going to get everywhere? And then it happened,” he narrated.
This incident sparked a lot of conversation, particularly about how race was a key factor in this incident. Many people believe that Lester only shot Yarl because he is black.
Therefore, he assumed that Yarl was trying to break into his house immediately. The teen testified in court in August last year, saying that Lester shot him in the head and in the arm again when he fell to the ground.
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Thankfully, Yarl survived the shooting and is back on his two feet. Later that same month, a judge ordered Lester to stand trial. They charged him with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Sadly, the teenage boy still suffers the effects of the shots to date. He is suffering lingering effects, making his mind feel hazy sometimes. “There are a lot of things going on inside my head that are not normal,” he said. “Sometimes my mind is just foggy, like, I can’t concentrate on the things that would be easy for me to do.”
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Without a doubt, securing a spot in the all-state band months after the shooting is a great deal for Yarl. He plays the bass clarinet, and the North Kansas City Schools named him second chair in the all-state band in their Facebook post.
“Bravo to Eliza Cockrell and Stephen Kwon from Northtown and Ralph Yarl and Carter Walters from Staley! They’ve earned a spot in the 2024 Missouri All-State Orchestra or Band and will perform at the Missouri Music Educators Association annual conference in January at Margaritaville Lake Resort in Lake of the Ozarks,” the statement read.
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