Andrew Lester, 84, appeared in a Clay County court Wednesday on charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action. He pleaded not guilty to shooting 16-year-old Ralph Yarl.
Authorities formally charged him on Monday. He turned himself in on Tuesday and bonded out later that day, Fox 4KC News reported.
Lester appeared in court the following day to enter a not guilty plea.
The man has been ordered to stay in the state of Missouri and cannot possess any weapons. He is not allowed to have any contact with the victim or his family.
Yarl is represented by prominent attorney Lee Merritt, who isn’t pleased with Lester’s plea.
“I think this may have been an opportunity to make it easier on the family to enter a plea of guilty,” he said.
“It’s frustrating for the family that he is out on bond,” Merritt added. “We were hoping that maybe the judge would revoke the bond. We want this process to go as quickly as possible.”
Lester is accused of shooting the teen on the evening of April 13 after the teen mistakenly went to the wrong home to pick up his siblings.
Yarl was picking up his younger siblings at a house on N.E. 115th Terrace but went to a house on N.E. 115th Street. When he arrived at the home, he rang the doorbell and that is when Lester shot him through a glass door, court documents say.
Yarl never entered the home. He was shot in the head and arm.
He told authorities that Lester told him, “Don’t come around here” after the shooting.
As the prosecutor of Clay County, I can tell you there was a racial component,” Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson said Monday.
“The issue here is he saw his blackness as a threat, and that mindset is dangerous,” Merritt said. Members of the community are calling for Lester to be charged with a hate crime.
The night of the incident, Lester was taken into police custody for questioning and released. Merritt says there was “enough probable cause to make an arrest, and it’s a pretext that they’re standing behind because they embarrassed because for their lack of action, and they had to be shamed into action.”
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