“He didn’t deserve to get shot” said Good Samaritan who helped Ralph Yarl found him bloody and motionless
James Lynch said his Eagle Scout training kicked in and he checked the teen’s pulse and tried to stanch the blood in a neighbor’s driveway before paramedics arrived.
Ralph Yarl was shot twice after he rang the wrong doorbell and was calling for help while lying motionless in a pool of blood, according to a good samaritan who came to the boy’s aid.
James Lynch, 42, who lives on Northeast 115 Street in Clay County, Kansas City, said that he was alerted by loud screams at around 10pm last Thursday night – something unusual for the quiet suburban neighbourhood.
“I heard somebody screaming, ‘Help, help, I’ve been shot!'” Lynch said, adding the shouting was out of place for the normally quiet neighborhood.
Lynch, a father of three, said he ran outside, jumped his fence and sprinted through a neighbor’s yard and across the street to another neighbor’s driveway to get to Yarl.
His face and arms were covered in blood, and it looked as if Yarl had been shot in his head near an eye socket.
“I thought he was dead,” Lynch said Monday.
“No one deserves to lay there like that,” Lynch said. “He hasn’t even begun to live his life yet. He didn’t deserve to get shot.”
Lynch’s old Eagle Scout training kicked in when Yarl suddenly came to. Lynch told him, “I’m going to grab your hand really tight.” He checked Yarl’s wrist for a pulse before he asked him his name and age and where he went to school.
Yarl struggled to respond before he spelled his name. Another neighbor came over with towels to help stem the bleeding, and she and Lynch waited with Yarl until paramedics arrived.
Yarl, 16, had been trying to pick up his 11-year-old twin brothers from a friend’s home but had gone to the wrong street and house.
His family’s attorneys, Lee Merritt and Ben Crump, said he was shot twice after he rang the doorbell.
A warrant was Issued for Andrew Lester, an 85-year-old white man, on charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action, Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said Monday.
Merritt said the shot to Yarl’s head left him with a critical, traumatic brain injury. He was also shot in the upper arm, the attorneys said.
Faith Spoonmore, his aunt, said on a fundraising page that Yarl had gone to at least three homes before he received help.
