Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old African American, is recovering at home after being shot twice in the head, when an octogenarian shot him for accidentally coming to his house.

Yarl was supposed to pick up his twin brothers from a friend’s house in Missouri, but he went the wrong way and ended up on the wrong street. The teen rang the doorbell at the residence and was greeted by two gunshot wounds when the door opened.

Attorneys for the state of Missouri, in the central United States, crime announced to a white man who allegedly shot and seriously injured a teenager who accidentally rang his doorbell.

According to Faith Spoonmore, Ralph’s aunt, said her cousin fell to the floor after the first shot and was shot again by the man on the floor. “Then Ralph was able to get up and run to the neighbor’s house for help. Unfortunately, he had to run to three different houses before someone finally agreed to help him after being told to They told you to lie on the floor with your hands upsaid Spoonmore, describing the young man as a gifted student and musician who dreamed of studying chemical engineering.

The emergency service received the emergency call last Thursday, April 13, at night. Ralph was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition.

Clay County Attorney Zachary Thompson has announced that the older man, identified as Andrew Lester, had been charged with first-degree assault and armed crime. His bail was set at $200,000.

Lester, aged 84 or 85, was initially held for 24 hours and later released without charge.

“To pretend race isn’t part of this whole situation would be to bury your head in the sand,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said Tuesday. “This kid was shot because he was black,” he added in a statement to CNN.

Kansas City police chief Stacey Graves said at a news conference Sunday night that she acknowledges “racial components” in the case, but the information now says “not that there are racial motives” and the investigation was, of course, still ongoing.

According to the family’s lawyers, Ralph would manage to recover from the incident: “Despite the severity of his injuries and the seriousness of his condition, Ralph is alive and recovering.”

Ben Crump, the lawyer, said the teen is “apparently disturbed” by the shooting and “understands he could be dead by now”.

“It’s inevitable not to look at the racial dynamics here,” Crump said. “If the tables were turned, how much outrage would there be in the United States?” he added.

Since Thursday, people have been demonstrating on social media and in Missouri to demand that guns be banned in the United States and that the perpetrator be punished.