Posted on 04/18/2023 5:49:45 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
A White man in Kansas City is accused of shooting a Black teenager who rang his doorbell by mistake, renewing attention on Missouri’s self-defense laws after the man, Andrew Lester, 84, said he shot Ralph Yarl, 16, because he feared for his safety.
Lester has since been charged with two felonies and said he was “scared to death” when the teen showed up at his front door. Yarl, who has been described by a family friend as quiet and respectful, was trying to pick up his siblings from a friend’s house and went to the wrong address. The shooting, which the prosecutor acknowledged had a racial component, has sparked protests calling for strong action against Lester.
Self-defense laws known as “stand your ground” statutes and “castle doctrine” — are part of many of states’ legal frameworks and have increasingly been part of the debate over gun violence. Here’s what you need to know......
Lester, the homeowner, said that he shot Yarl because he believed he “was protecting himself from a physical confrontation” and that he heard Yarl pulling on the storm door, the criminal complaint says, setting up a potential defense that relies on Missouri’s self-defense laws. According to Yarl’s statement, he rang the doorbell and waited quietly for a few minutes before Lester opened the door and fired on him.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Now it gets murky, can opening the storm door be attempting to illegally enter?
Wouldn't want to be the gun owner in Missouri, look what happened to those lawyers that used guns to protect themselves in St Louis.
“Lester has since been charged with two felonies”
Sounds to me this has NOTHING TO DO with Stand Your Ground.
If the young man rang the doorbell and waited, then what is the stand your ground issue? It seems like for SYG to operate, you would need to be in danger.
I feel so sorry, that this is an old man. Yet, I knew that was most likely.
I fear he is guilty of manslaughter. But, he doesn’t deserve to be lynched by these bastard race-whiners and rioters.
The only racial component is that the man probably thought a black kid coming to the door at 10 pm can’t be a good thing. Otherwise Im sure the old man didn’t shoot him only because he’d love to shoot a black guy. But that is how these race-whiners and hustlers and the liberal media make it out to be.
Why do all these young people keep going to the wrong address? It seems to be an epidemic.
if the kid attempted to open the door, that changes everything.
It was a horrible accident, but at least justified.
But if it can be proven that the kid never attempted to open the door, then it was a bad shoot and still a horrible accident, and the man should at a minimum pay for the kids hospital bills.
> he heard Yarl pulling on the storm door <
That’s probably true. But that alone did not put the homeowner’s life in danger. Trying to break through a door, yes. Just pulling on it, no.
This is obviously a very tragic case. Gun guy messed up bad. Ten years imprisonment seems about right.
“I fear he is guilty of manslaughter”
The kid is alive and home recovering.
“if the kid attempted to open the door, that changes everything”
Correct
As a rule, knock on the door, or use the doorbell / door-knocker . . . and then get off the front porch and stand back on the sidewalk at least 10 ft away.
> The kid is alive and home recovering. <
Ah, then I edit my hasty post #7: Two or three years imprisonment seems about right.
Dropping your cell phone is a accident. Shooting someone thru a storm door isn’t a accident. The use of a gun, knife or fist requires judgment.
The homeowner being 85, 2-3 years is probably a life sentence.
Hmmm
There is a reason most politicians started out as lawyers, their wealth, power, and prestige are made from the suffering of others ...
I have neighbors who once in awhile knock on my door and if I don’t get there to open it will put something inside my storm door if it is unlocked.
Ten o’clock at night might scare me if someone was pulling on or jiggling the storm door handle. If they persisted, I would dial 911 first.
So it seems like this, the kid made a mistake and went to the wrong house thinking his siblings were in there. He rang the bell and jiggled the handle to get their attention.
The old man was terrified when saw the person and heard the pulling on the door handle, so he opened the door and shot through the glass.
It was tragic error on both their parts. It could have been worse if either one died.
Oh, and this is pure speculation because the facts are murky and change often.
3 million wealthier too.
I saw this remarkable quote in another article.
“If the roles were reversed, how much outraged would there be in America?” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been retained by the family, asked CNN on Monday.
Uh, absolutely none, race hustler Crump. We’ve had incidents of white and Asian children being murdered in cold blood by black hoodlums and there is deafening silence from the BLM types.
again, to me the main issue is whether the kid attempted to open the porch door.
It would be totally believable if he did, since he believed he was at the right house just picking up his brothers (which I believe)
If I was going to someones house to pick up someone, I would naturally open the screen door to knock on the real door behind in many cases.
This to me just seems like a horrible misunderstanding.
Imagine you are asleep and you hear a knock at the door or the doorbell ring.. you get up go to the door in the middle of the night and upon opening the outer door you see a teen opening up your outer screen door. I am 100% you would be terrified, I KNOW I would be!
God I hope not. This guy who shot the kid was wrong. He’s damn lucky he survived. Ten years in prison should teach him not to randomly shoot people who don’t have bad intentions.
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