Sometimes, Yarl, 17, turns inward, ignoring phone calls and texts from loved ones. He skipped senior prom because he was afraid people would ask him about the shooting and he wasn’t sure how he would respond. And he acknowledges that his brain doesn’t process dense information the way it once did.
Yarl, who was shot in the head last April 13, when he went to the wrong house in Kansas City to pick up his two younger brothers, has struggled with a seesaw of emotions since that fateful day: anger, hope for the future, sadness and compassion.
“It’s definitely a bumpy journey,” Yarl said in his first in-depth interview about how the shooting has affected him one year later. “Whenever there’s something that goes on that reminds me of what happened … I just have, like, such a negative wave of emotions, like anger, like disgust. It’s always a mix of good and bad days. And I feel like the good days are when I’m able to be around people that help me build myself up.”
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Family members said Yarl — who still bears an uneven scar on his forehead from the bullet that grazed his skull and left him with a traumatic brain injury — has struggled to reckon with what happened to him.
“Ralph minimized it as if nothing happened,” said his mother, Cleo Nagbe. “But the thing with trauma is that the body will process it when it’s ready. I knew it was coming.”
“At times, he wants to disappear,” she said.
Yarl has mentally struggled to recover from the shooting
Nagbe said her son suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, which she believes played a role in his totaling two vehicles in the past three months. In one of the accidents, he crashed into a tree.
Yarl said surviving the shooting has forced him to tend to his mental health. “It is a constant uphill battle,” he said.
A year ago, he was trying to pick up his siblings when he mistakenly went to the wrong house.
When Yarl rang the doorbell, the white homeowner, Andrew Lester, 85, fired multiple shots from a handgun, grazing Yarl in the head and striking him in the arm. Lester called police, telling them he fired because he was scared.
Yarl’s shooting sparked protests around the country and demands for Lester’s immediate arrest. Lester surrendered to police days later after having been charged with first-degree assault, a felony, and armed criminal action. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to start Oct. 7.
Yarl said that the shooting has changed how he interacts with strangers and that he now second-guesses ringing doorbells of houses of people he doesn’t know. Random encounters often make him feel scared and wary even if people are being courteous.
“If someone approaches me with kindness, of course, I’m going to be friendly with them,” he said. But somewhere in his subconscious, “there’s always a part of me that says that person could potentially” be dangerous, he said.
Yarl wants his shooting to serve a purpose
The rising rate of gun violence in his hometown makes it even more difficult to heal.
Kansas City experienced its deadliest year on record last year, with 182 homicides, according to the police department. The previous record of 176 homicides was set in 2020.
Yarl and some of his classmates at Staley High School said they want his shooting to motivate people to combat gun violence.
“I just feel that we haven’t learned,” Yarl said, noting that there were protests and demonstrations on his behalf but that people are still using guns instead of solving their differences in a civil way.
Yarl said he sometimes feels guilty that his shooting, which drew national attention, didn’t lead to a decrease in gun violence. “It just feels like a failure on my part,” he said.
Yarl’s shooting wasn’t the only one in the past year that affected his classmates. There was also the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade, where one person was killed and at least 20 other people were injured, and another near their high school during a basketball game, classmates said.
His Staley classmate Samaria Bossell, 18, said shootings should be discussed at school as they occur.
“Our school should talk a little bit more about it. When the shooting happened last year, there was an announcement made, but there wasn’t a deep conversation about it,” she said, adding that counselors were available for the short term only.
She said the school should provide more gun awareness education and publicize student-sponsored town halls about gun violence.
Another classmate, Cadence Byrd, 15, said gun violence in Kansas City schools and across the city has to stop. She was at the Super Bowl parade when the gunfire started a few feet away from her, she said.
“It’s actually kind of scary, especially being so close to it, fleeing the scene and seeing so many people in panic,” she said. “It’s traumatizing.”
Yarl noted that most of those problems in the community stem from simple arguments and said that for whatever reason, people think they can solve problems with firearms.
The shooting has also taken a toll on Yarl’s family
When it comes to the potential long-term effects of his brain injury, Yarl said he’s not thinking much about them.
Many brain injuries are invisible disabilities, because while people may appear normal, internally there may be battles to simply function, said Heather Pilkinton, executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Kansas and Greater Kansas City.
Over time, someone could suffer a loss of thought process, motor functions or hearing and vision, she said.
“Ralph’s resilience is inspiring and represents a symbol of hope,” said Pilkinton, whose organization plans to honor him next month during its annual walk and run. “Ralph is a miracle. The quality of his life is incredible.”
Still, Yarl’s life isn’t the same as it used to be.
Yarl’s mother said that their family used to look forward to vacation trips to South Carolina and Wisconsin but that now they travel to therapy sessions.
“I wish I was doing better,” she said. “You start to realize that life isn’t what it used to be.”
Faith Spoonmore, his aunt, said the family remains shaken by what happened.
“I feel like we’re stuck. I look at him in the distance, and he’s so far away. He wants to free himself from this. He just wants to be Ralph,” Spoonmore said. “This trial is hanging over his head.”
Looking to the future
Yarl sat with his classmates, his hands folded in his lap, as they discussed which one of their parents might buy a new car. He cracked a smile and wiped his eyes late in the afternoon. The exchange brought a glimpse of the happy-go-lucky teen who loved being in the high school band and shooting the breeze with friends.
While the shooting initially kept Yarl from his passion of playing the bass clarinet, months later, he secured a spot in the Missouri all-state band.
“I was physically restricted. I would have splitting headaches, and they got worse when I would try and blow into my instrument,” he said. “So yeah, when I was finally able to, that was a milestone in my journey.”
And there are other good days. On Easter, Yarl was full of spunk, hiding eggs in his aunt’s backyard for his younger cousins. He is taking life one day at a time.
“I just feel like I got lucky, really,” he said, of being alive.
Yarl plans to study engineering at a university next fall, though he’s undecided on where.
His mother wants him to stay closer to home, but he prefers to go far away. She said her hope is to one day send him out into the world without a knot in her stomach.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com