“Help me, help me, I was shot.”
On the night of the 13th (local time), James Lynch (42), who lives in a house in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, was about to lie down in bed after taking a shower when he heard a faint voice from somewhere. Being a quiet neighborhood, it was unusual to hear noises at night. I looked out the window and saw someone lying on the ground knocking on my neighbor’s door. Out of the house, Lynch made her way through the yard and fence to the neighbor’s house. Lynch was stunned by the sight in front of him.
A black boy (16), covered in blood, was lying there. He had been shot in the head and arm. A pulse was still beating in the boy’s wrist. Lynch took the boy’s hand and asked his name. The boy tried to say something, but no words came out of his mouth.
A little while ago, the boy went out of the house to run an errand for his parents and suffered an accident. His parents asked the boy to go to the house whose address was ‘Terrace 115’ and fetch his 11-year-old twin brothers. The boy was looking for the place in a dark alley, but he got the wrong address and rang the doorbell of the house on ‘115th Street’. The cost of pressing the wrong doorbell was devastating.
The landlord, Andrew Lester, was an 84-year-old white male. He shot a black boy in front of the house. A bullet from his .32 caliber handgun pierced the glass door and hit the boy in the head. It was investigated that Lester approached the boy who had fallen and shot him in the arm again.
The police, who were called to Lynch’s report, immediately arrested Lester. However, he was detained for 24 hours and released after the “time allowed for detention before prosecution” according to state law. Hundreds of residents gathered in front of the Leicester house to protest, and fierce criticism arose. Eventually, the police charged Lester with felony charges on the 17th.
The boy’s name is Ralph Yal. He has Liberia immigrant parents, and is known for being good at video games and sports at school. Yal suffered severe brain damage, but he underwent emergency surgery and is in a non-life-threatening condition. Police said, “Yal did not cross the threshold of Lester’s home, and there were no signs of any exchange of words prior to the shooting.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.