The white Kansas City man charged with allegedly shooting a Black teenager who accidentally rang his doorbell is bringing newfound attention to Missouri’s self-defense laws. Andrew Lester, 84, said he shot Ralph Yarl, 16, because he was in fear for his life. Lester has been charged with two felonies: first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
Lester claims he was “scared to death” when Yarl appeared at his front door. “Stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws, which are used in cases to claim self-defense, are embedded in the frameworks of numerous states. The first “stand your ground” law was founded in 2005 in Florida.
The law says that when someone believes another person is a threat in a place where they have a right to be, they can legally respond with physical—and even deadly—force. In Missouri, the self-defense law states that a person can use such force against another if they “reasonably believe that such deadly force is necessary” to safeguard “against death, serious physical injury, or any forcible felony.”
Lester, the owner of the property, said that he shot Yarl because he believed he “was protecting himself from a physical confrontation.” However, Yarl’s statement explains that he rang the doorbell and waited quietly before Lester opened the door and shot him. Attorneys told The Washington Post that ringing a doorbell doesn’t justify the use of deadly force.
Prosecutors have acknowledged that there is a racial component to the case. On Tuesday—the day after Andrew Lester was charged for the shooting—Yarl’s mother, Cleo Nagbe, said her son was at home recovering after being released from the hospital.