When "Stand Your Ground" Is Camouflage For White Fear, Racism, And Over-Reaction
Ralph Yarl didn't deserve to be shot for knocking on the wrong door
You can’t just shoot people without having justification when somebody comes knocking on your door and knocking on your door is not justification. This guy should be charged
The young man in the above picture is 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who should be just another anonymous teenage boy in Kansas City, MO. But, instead, he’s recovering after being shot.
The young man’s crime? Ringing the doorbell at the wrong home after he was asked to pick up his younger brothers.
Granted, not all of the facts have come out yet. There will be more to this story, but what has emerged thus far is disturbing.
The Kansas Defender reported that a 16-year-old was shot in the head by a white man, and as he lay bleeding, the man shot him in the head again. Yarl ended up at the door accidently when he was asked to go pick up his sibling at a friend's house. The house where he was supposed to go was on NE 115th Terrace. Yarl went to NE 115th Street instead.
“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, Yarl's aunt, told the Defender.
The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence cites Missouri's "stand your ground" laws that "remove the duty to retreat before using deadly force in defense of self or others in any place a person has a right to be."
Left unclear, of course, is why the White shooter felt threatened by a 16-year-old Black boy who did little more than ring his doorbell.
What’s less clear is why the shooter fired upon Yarl a second time.
[Attorney Ben Crump} said the homeowner initially shot the teen in the head and then a second time after the boy fell to the ground.
Crump said the homeowner’s actions were inexcusable and unjustified. “After he had shot him, you could’ve closed your door and called the police. Why did you go out and shoot him a second time?” he said. “It’s outrageous, is what it is. It’s outrageous. You just shoot somebody because they knocked on your door.” Crump said based on what he was told by the teen’s family, the shooter is white. “It is inescapable not to acknowledge the racial dynamics at play,” he said. Ralph was meant to pick up his brothers from a friend’s house on 115th Terrace. He ended up ringing the doorbell at a home on 115th Street, Faith Spoonmore, the teen’s aunt, wrote online.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Police Department appears to be taking a calm and (at least to an outside observer’s impression) leisurely approach to this shooting. Granted, Missouri’s gun laws have turned the Show-Me State into something of a free-fire zone. Even so, the state’s permissive gun laws should hold someone accountable for a tragic incident like this…right?
While I can appreciate the delicate position Police Chief Stacey Graves finds herself in, her cautious approach isn’t sitting well with Yarl’s family or Kansas City’s Black community. And they’ve got a legitimate beef. Consider the circumstances-
A young Black man innocently knocks on the wrong door.
The White homeowner opens the door and shoots the young Black man.
Instead of closing the door and retreating inside, the homeowner advances on the young Black and fires at him again.
Even with Missouri’s “Stand Your Ground” law, there has to be a threat established before one can open fire. Was that the case in this situation? There seems to be some conjecture that this was precisely what it appeared to be- a boy innocently knocking on the wrong door.
Police Chief Stacey Graves said Sunday the police department is working to make sure the investigation of the shooting of a Black teen-ager moves as quickly as it can so the case can be presented to the Clay County prosecutor. “I want everyone to know that I am listening,” Graves said at a news conference at Kansas City police headquarters downtown, “and I understand the concern we are receiving from the community.”….
Graves said Sunday that the homeowner who allegedly shot the teen was taken into custody Thursday and placed on a 24-hour hold. While searching the scene for evidence, detectives found the firearm allegedly used. Law enforcement released the suspect pending further investigation after consulting with the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office….
Graves said Missouri law allows a person to be held up to 24 hours for a felony investigation. At that point, the person must be released or arrested and formally charged. In order to arrest someone, Graves said law enforcement needs a formal victim statement, forensic evidence and other information for a case file to be completed. Because of the teen’s injuries, Graves said police haven’t been able to get a victim statement yet.
Graves is likely spot-on as to what the law says. The problem is that it’s doubtful Kansas City’s Black community will see it that way. When they look at Ralph Yarl’s case, they’ll almost certainly see a 16-year-old boy who was needlessly shot by a White homeowner who over-reacted. Then they’ll see the lack of action, and it will look like the law is coming down on the White man’s side at the expense of the Black victim.
We’ve seen this movie before, right?
Yes, we have…and the law never seems to be on the side of the Black victim.
Though Chief Graves has assured the Kansas City community that a thorough investigation is being done, anyone lacking in-depth knowledge of the case will likely see this as a White shooter/Black victim situation. From the information currently available, an argument can be made that this shooting is a hate crime.
Yarl pulled up 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,” his aunt, Faith Spoonmore, wrote. “My nephew fell to the ground, and the man shot him again.”
Still conscious, Yarl ran for help, but Spoonmore alleged that he “had to run to 3 different homes” before someone came to his aid, and then only after ordering the 16-year-old to lie on the ground with his hands up. He was hospitalized, but “has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally,” the fundraiser page reads….
On the fundraising page, Spoonmore called her nephew “a fantastic kid” who dreams of attending Texas A&M for chemical engineering.
Last summer, she said, he attended the Missouri Scholars Academy, a program for high-achieving students. Yarl is also a talented bass clarinet player who leads a section of his school’s marching band, and plays multiple instruments in the Northland Symphony Youth Orchestra.
Thankfully, it sounds as if Yarl will recover from his physical wounds, though he has a long road ahead. And that doesn’t even consider the emotional toll this will inevitably take on him. Who will cover the cost of the medical treatment and the counseling he’ll need to get back to where he was before the shooting…if that’s even possible?
Fortunately, a GoFundMe was set up for Ralph Yarl and has been remarkably successful so far, but it still probably won’t be enough to cover the cost of treatment.
Yes, Virginia, this is precisely why America needs mandatory liability insurance for gun owners.
That same day, the passenger in a car that went up the wrong driveway was shot dead in the car. The victim was white, and the shooter was *immediately* charged with a crime.
They have since charged the shooter in the Yarl attack, but it is pretty damned telling how the two cases were handled in a completely different manner.
For years it has been the case that all LEO had to declare was that they "felt" threatened, and they were given a free pass to murder black people with promiscuous abandon. There is an implicit denial of POC's humanity in all of this. The officer that killed Michael Brown in Ferguson justified himself before the grand jury saying that Brown "looked like a demon," blatantly dehumanizing the boy and justifying himself.