The grandson of the elderly man who shot Ralph Yarl in the head when the black teen mistakenly rang his doorbell claimed the elderly gunman held racist beliefs and was a QAnon conspiracy theorist fueled by paranoia.
Klint Ludwig condemned his grandfather’s actions during an interview on CNN on Thursday after 84-year-old Andrew Lester was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action for shooting Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri.
Ludwig said the QAnon acolyte was a “stock American Christian male” whose mind has been warped by racist conspiracy theories.
“I believe he holds racist tendencies and beliefs,” Ludwig told CNN, claiming that Lester was caught up in the “fear and paranoia, perpetuated by some other news stations.”
He said his grandfather began subscribing to QAnon theories, including that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s agency funded medical experiments on beagles.
When Ludwig tried to push back on the theories, the grandson said Lester couldn’t take the criticism, and the two eventually lost touch with each other.
“It’s the conspiracies and weird, random, racist things they say, and it doesn’t make sense, but they’re just scared,” he said of people like his grandfather. (NYPost)