James Lynch / Twitter
The neighbor of the gunman who shot Ralph Yarl used the survival skills he learned as an Eagle Scout to save the young boy’s life.
James Lynch was the one who saved Yarl, who almost would have died had it not been for the Eagle Scout training Lynch received.
Yarl was bleeding from what appeared to be a head wound near the 16-year-old’s eye socket, something Lynch had learned to treat.
With another neighbor present, Lynch used his Eagle Scout training in first aid by placing some towels on his head to stop the bleeding.
“‘I’m going to grab your hand really tight,” Lynch said he told the boy that before checking his wrist for a pulse.
“I thought he was dead,” Lynch told NBC News on Monday, adding: “No one deserves to lay there like that. He hasn’t even begun to live his life yet. He didn’t deserve to get shot.”
Lynch’s heroism was noted on social media, but not to take the focus off Yarl, the adult Eagle Scout alumni praised the student for his resilience.
“I didn’t do anything but hold a kid’s hand so he wouldn’t feel alone. He had just gotten shot twice — he had a hole in the side of his head. That kid is tougher than I am,” he told NBC News.
As previously reported, Yarl was shot while mistakenly ringing white man Andrew Lester’s doorbell.
Lester, who got released on April 13 from jail after 24 hours of shooting Yarl, who rang his doorbell by mistake in an attempt to pick up his twin brothers, was not charged for shooting the boy until protests and celebrities called for it.
Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson announced his felony charge the following Monday.
“It was appropriate for the prosecutor to charge him and the only tragedy was that it took so long for them to charge him,” Ben Crump, one of the lawyers representing Yarl, said. “You can’t send a message to society that it’s okay to shoot Black people in the head just for ringing your doorbell.”
Lester’s assault charge is a Class A felony, and if found guilty, he faces between 10 years and up to 30 years or life in prison.
On April 17, the case is being investigated by Kansas City police the matter.
On April 16, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said investigators need a formal statement from the victim, forensic evidence, and other information to close the case.
Graves will also have to consider the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which gives people the right to use deadly force to protect themselves, but the use of force has to be proportionate to the level of threat.