The facts date back to Thursday 13 April, but only in the following days did the news go around the United States and then the rest of the world. 16-year-old Ralph Yarl ended up in hospital after being wounded by two gunshots: Sunday he returned home where his mother who is a nurse is taking care of him. He was shot by an 80-year-old white man who was arrested and released within 24 hours in Kansas City, Missouri. Ralph Yarl is an African American and his fault was that he rang the doorbell of the wrong house.
He had gone to pick up his little brothers at a friend’s house. However, the address was wrong and a man shot him, first in the head and then in the arm, when he was already on the ground. Taken to hospital, he is in serious but stable condition. The family’s lawyers have asked the police, who for now say they have no evidence of a racist motive, to “identify, arrest and fully prosecute the man responsible for this horrendous and unjustifiable act”.
There have been protests from the African American community. The slogans of Black lives matter, but also signs such as «justice for Ralph» and «Ringing a bell is not a crime». The fundraiser started by one of the boy’s aunts for health care costs reached more than a million dollars.
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Faith Spoonmore, Ralph Yarl’s aunt, said: «Ralph played many instruments, the leader of the band, you could always find him with an instrument in his hand. His goal was to go to chemical engineering school, and when we asked him how he was going to get into university, he always replied that if they had a scholarship for music, surely he would have taken it » .
Many have taken up the family’s message. Among these too Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Hudson, Naomi Campbell, Kerry Washington, Viola Davis and Halle Berry.
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