LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — The family of a Black Kansas City teenager who was shot by a white man after he mistakenly knocked on the man’s door are frustrated with the prosecutor’s handling of the case, attorneys for the family said Thursday.
The complaints came after a preliminary hearing for 84-year-old Andrew Lester was set for Aug. 31-Sept. 1 and just days after a Clay County judge approved a request by Lester’s attorney to seal documents in the case.
Lester has pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, who knocked on Lester’s door on April 13 while trying to pick up his young brothers, who were at a home a block away.
Civil rights attorneys Benjamin Crump and Lee Merritt said in a Zoom news conference that they had previously asked Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson to step aside and let Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker be named as a special prosecutor in the case but that Thompson “adamantly” refused.
The family is upset that Thompson did not more aggressively challenge the motion to seal court records and that the preliminary hearing was delayed for 90 days, which Thompson did not object to in court.