The White House has announced its invitation to the family of Ralph Yarl, the 16-year-old African-American boy who was shot twice and critically injured after merely knocking on the front door of 84-year-old Andrew D. Lester. Yarl had mixed up addresses, confusing Northeast 115 Street and Northeast 115th Terrace. Lester was taken into custody and shortly released without charges. Public anger mounted, and the police turned the case over to the county prosecutor, who charged Lester with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action. Yarl is expected to make a full recovery.
Based on the evidence available in the press, I could absolutely understand why Lester is being charged. Nowhere in America do you have the right to shoot someone who merely appears at your doorstep. You only have the right to shoot someone if you are reasonably under threat of death or great bodily harm, or — in some instances — to actively prevent the committing of a felony. It may be the case that it is reasonable for a relatively vulnerable 84-year-old man to fear a strange young man at the door, but such a fear doesn’t license the use of deadly force.
But we can see already how the case could generate controversy. And there may yet be more details about the incident to come out that further incriminate Lester. Reporters will surely look for anything in Lester’s life that suggests that racial animus or bias could have played a role in his decision to shoot Yarl. Or perhaps other details will come out and the story will look entirely different by next week.
Which is why I think it’s bad for the White House to make this gesture so early. It gives the sense of prejudging an ongoing case. This comes after weeks in which the White House seemed to suggest that transgender people were the real and primary victims of the Nashville shooting committed by a transgender person and targeting children and staff at a Christian school. I worry that, in totality, we are crossing a line and truly making crime an extension of partisan politics. We do not need a White House willing to express genuine sympathy for the motives of murderers they identify as their own, or cast as partisan actors those killers who victimize members of identity groups they associate with their electoral coalition.
I now long for the days of the Obama “beer summit” — stunt that it was. It at least demonstrated a vestigial instinct among elected leaders that on matters of law and civics, they represented everyone, not just their own voters.