There were two doors. A lighter glass door opening to a regular front door as is common to many homes. So this old coot opened the inner door to see the kid either pulling or not pulling on the outer one. Either way opening the outer door to knock on the inner one is a pretty common way to knock on a door in my experience. It was late at night and the old man had reason to be skittish since there were a couple home invasion type robberies in the area over the past few months. I’m sure that’s what he’ll say when this goes to trial. I don’t want to live in a society that allows trigger happy old timers to shoot through a door without determining wtf is going on. I’d say the same if he whacked him with a baseball bat through the door.
I stand corrected. My comment from this am was based on the earlier version of the story, which had not mentioned a storm door. I agree with what you are saying, except that I would not open someone’s storm door to knock on their main door. The story might change by tomorrow am, but the whole narrative has been about Yarl ringing the doorbell—nothing about knocking, and not touching the door. Unless the kid had physically entered the house, there was no justification for shooting him.