KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An 84-year-old Kansas City man accused of shooting a Black teenager who mistakenly rang the doorbell at the wrong home surrendered to police on Tuesday, officials said.

“Andrew Lester, charged in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, has surrendered at our Detention Center and is in custody,” the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “He is in the booking process right now.”

Lester, of Kansas City, Missouri, was charged Monday with assault in the first degree and armed criminal action, both of which are felonies, in the Thursday night shooting of Ralph Yarl, the Clay County prosecuting attorney has said.

Yarl, 16, had gone to gone to the wrong address to pick up his siblings around 10 p.m., and he was shot through a glass door after ringing the doorbell, according to a probable cause statement filed by police.

Lester told investigators that he had gone to bed when the doorbell rang, and he went to the door armed with a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, police wrote in that document.

Lester said he saw a Black male he didn’t know pulling on the exterior storm door handle, and thought his home was being broken into, the probable cause statement says.

Lester said he fired twice through the glass door, it says. Then, the male ran away, he told police, and he used his home phone to dial 911. He said he observed a car in the driveway of his home that he believed belonged to the male, but didn’t see anyone inside of it.

No words were exchanged during the incident, Lester told police.

Lester said firing his weapon “was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was ‘scared to death'” because of the male’s size and Lester’s age, police wrote.

Lester said he lives alone. A police detective wrote in the probable cause statement that he noticed a security system in the home and took the hard drive to preserve any evidence, but later found the equipment had last captured video in June 2022 and was no longer functional.

Yarl was interviewed at the hospital the following day and gave a different version of events, according to the probable cause statement. He told a detective that he did not pull on the door, and that he was waiting at the door after ringing the bell when a man opened the door holding a firearm.

Yarl “stated he was immediately shot in the head and fell to the ground,” police wrote. The teenager told police that he was again shot, this time in the arm, and ran, according to the document. Yarl reported to police that he heard a voice say “Don’t come around here,” police wrote.

Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Zachary Thompson said there was a racial component to the case. Lester is white.

Even though Thompson stated that there was a racial element, Lester will not be charged with a hate crime because it would be a lesser degree of felony than what he has been charged with, Alexander K. Higginbotham, a public information officer for the Clay County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said Tuesday. 

“Our office has charged the defendant in his case with an A felony, which is four classes higher than a hate crime enhancement could take a charge,” he said. 

That is also why Lester was not charged for attempted murder, Higginbotham said, because “the charge would be a lower level of offense than Assault in the First Degree and carry with it a lower range of punishment.”

Thompson explained that “he understands the racial components and context that surround a case like this. However, legally speaking, there is not a racial element to the legal charges that were filed.”

Yarl has since been released from the hospital, an attorney for his family said.

Police said in the probable cause statement that they attempted to reach Yarl’s family on Sunday and Monday to do a formal interview, but had trouble making contact.

The shooting sparked protests in Kansas City. Actor Halle Berry was among those who spoke out.

“This could be your child. This should NOT happen,” Berry wrote Monday in an Instagram post.

Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Lee Merritt said Monday that President Joe Biden had spoken with the Yarl family by phone.

After the shooting Lester was taken into police custody but was later released. Police wrote in the probable cause document that the prosecutor’s office advised that he be released pending further investigation.

Thompson said Monday that a warrant had been issued for Lester’s arrest and bond set at $200,000. It was not immediately clear Tuesday if Lester had retained an attorney.

Deon J. Hampton reported from Kansas City, Phil Helsel from Los Angeles and Safia Samee Ali from Chicago. Erik Ortiz contributed from New York.