A family in Kansas City, Missouri is demanding justice after a 16-year-old Black teen was shot and severely injured by a white man after accidentally ringing the doorbell of the wrong home on Thursday.
The white man allegedly shot Ralph Yarl in the head as the teen was trying to pick up his younger siblings from a friend’s house, The Daily Beast reported. When Yarl was already bleeding out on the ground, the man allegedly shot him again.
Dr. Faith Spoonmore, Ralph’s aunt, said her nephew didn’t have his phone with him when he was looking for his friend’s home.
“He pulled into the driveway and rang the doorbell. The man in the home opened the door, looked my nephew in the eye, and shot him in the head. My nephew fell to the ground, and the man shot him again. Ralph was then able to get up and run to the neighbor’s house, looking for help,” Spoonmore wrote on a GoFundMe page. “Unfortunately, he had to run to three different homes before someone finally agreed to help him after he was told to lie on the ground with his hands up.”
“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,” Dr. Faith Spoonmore, Ralph’s aunt, said according to The Kansas City Defender.
The white man is not yet facing charges according to the teen’s family.
“This man intended to kill an innocent child simply because he rang the doorbell of the wrong house. He looked him in the face and shot him… and the individual is free to go about his day as if he did a great deed,” Spoonmore said.
The family is working with community members to bring justice for their loved one.
“Even though he is doing well physically, he has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally. The trauma that he has to endure and survive is unimaginable,” Spoonmore wrote. “He is our miracle. We have heard these types of stories many times, and unfortunately, most black boys are not alive to get another chance.”
