What we know about who shot Ralph Yarl, Kaylin Gillis and Payton Washington

While the shootings involving Lester, Kevin Monahan and Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr. appear to be unprovoked, the headline-grabbing incidents in the past week have fueled national conversations on gun violence, self-defense and public safety because of what appear to be everyday miscalculations. Lester, Monahan and Rodriguez have all been charged.

Here’s what we know so far about the three incidents and the men accused:

Lester and the house in Kansas City

On April 13, 16-year-old Yarl, who is Black, rang the doorbell at what he believed was a residence on 115th Terrace in Kansas City’s Northland neighborhood to take his brothers home. But Yarl was actually a block away at a residence on 115th Street that belonged to Lester, an 84-year-old White man.

Lester told police that since he was afraid someone was trying to break into house, he got his Smith & Wesson .32-caliber pistol and opened fire on Yarl within seconds. The 84-year-old recounted to police that “it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he was ‘scared to death’” because of the teenager’s size and his own age and inability to defend himself, according to the criminal complaint. Yarl, who is recuperating after being shot in the head and arm, said in his statement to police that he did not pull on the door and was shot immediately.

Lester believed Yarl was a “Black male approximately 6 feet tall.” Yarl’s family says the teen is 5-8 and 140 pounds.

Lester has been charged with two felonies, including first-degree assault, and faces up to life in prison. Clay County Prosecutor Zachary Thompson said there was “a racial component to the case,” and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) emphasized that Yarl was shot “because he was existing while Black.”

“There was no reason to fear this boy,” Lucas told The Washington Post.

The 84-year-old military veteran and former airline mechanic has faced backlash in the days since the incident. Among those critics is his grandson, Klint Ludwig, who told the Kansas City Star that he was “appalled” and “disgusted” over the shooting.

Lester pleaded not guilty on Wednesday and has been released on bond. As part of Lester’s bond, he must surrender his concealed carry permit and passport, and cannot leave the state of Missouri without permission from his bond supervisor. The next court appearance is scheduled for June 1.

S. Lee Merritt, one of the Yarl family’s attorneys, posted a photo on Twitter of him and the teen, who is now recovering at home. Merritt told reporters that while Yarl, who plays bass clarinet at Staley High School, will be unable to play at an upcoming competition, he has an invitation to perform at the White House.

A GoFundMe campaign for Yarl surpassed $3.3 million in funds raised by midday Thursday.

“How the bullet in his head did not cause more extensive damage is truly a miracle,” Merritt tweeted.

Monahan and the driveway in Upstate New York

It was Saturday night in a rural part of Upstate New York. Gillis and her friends were driving around with little to no cell service in search of their friend’s house. The group had pulled into a driveway of a residence not belonging to their friend, and began to back out after they “realized their mistake,” according to police.

But Monahan, a 65-year-old White man, who lived at the home in Hebron, N.Y., was apparently infuriated. He has been described by authorities this week as “confrontational and hot-tempered.” He quickly came out to the porch and fired two shots at a Ford Explorer, Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey J. Murphy said at a news conference this week. None of the people inside the car got out or tried to enter Monahan’s house before he shot at them, Murphy said.

One of the shots hit Gillis, who was pronounced dead after the group called 911 several miles away from the incident.

“There was no reason for Mr. Monahan to feel threatened,” Murphy said. He confirmed Gillis was also White.

Murphy added, “This is a very sad case of some young adults that were looking for a friend’s house and ended up at this man’s house who decided to come out with a firearm and discharge it.”

Kurt Mausert, Monahan’s attorney, has accused the sheriff’s office of presenting what he described to the Associated Press this week as a “superficial, simplistic” account of what happened in Hebron. Mausert claimed that Monahan did not mean to hurt anyone when he fired the gun.

“I believe we have series of mistakes that led to a tragedy,” Mausert told the AP. “But I don’t believe my client is a villain. [N]ot every case with a tragedy has a villain, and I think this is one of them.”

Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder and faces 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted. He has pleaded not guilty, and Washington County, N.Y. Judge Adam Michelini on Wednesday ordered him held without bail.

Monahan owns a contracting business and has lived in Washington County for more than 30 years, Mausert said in an email to The Post. Neighbors in Hebron, a small town about 60 miles northeast of Albany, have described Monahan in interviews with the AP and New York Post as being irritated and increasingly bitter about people mistakenly driving onto his property in recent years. Murphy told CNN this week that Monahan “has not shown any remorse in this case.”

Blake Walsh, 19, Gillis’s boyfriend, was in the car when Monahan fired at them.

“My friend said, ‘They’re shooting — go!’” he told NBC News. “I tried to step on the gas as fast as I could, and that’s when the fatal shot came through.”

Walsh said he and Gillis, a graduate of Schuylerville High School and aspiring marine biologist, had been a couple for more than four years, and had talked about eventually getting married: “My world was taken from me Saturday,” he said to NBC.

In a GoFundMe campaign that’s raised more than $135,000 for Gillis’s funeral expenses, her family remembered her as “a talented artist, an honor student, a Disney fanatic” who loved her family and boyfriend.

“She was just beginning to find her way in the world with kindness, humor, and love,” the family wrote.

Rodriguez and the car in Texas

After a Monday night practice leading up to a major competition in Orlando, a group of teen Texas cheerleaders with Woodlands Elite Cheer Co. had finally returned after midnight Tuesday to the parking lot of an H-E-B grocery store in Elgin, Tex., which their carpool used.

When one of the cheerleaders, Heather Roth, got into a car she thought was a friend’s, she realized that a man was in the vehicle and quickly got out, she said at a vigil shared to Instagram Live. Roth said that after she got into her friend’s car, she saw the man, later identified by police as Rodriguez, a 25-year-old Hispanic man, approach her and she rolled down her window to apologize.

“He pulled out a gun, and then he just started shooting at all of us,” Roth said, according to KHOU, an CBS affiliate in Houston.

The attacker shot Roth and Payton Washington, an 18-year-old high school senior and cheerleader for the Round Rock Independent School District, near Austin.

“Payton opens the door, and she starts throwing up blood,” Roth said.

Washington suffered “serious injuries” when she was shot in the back and leg, police said. She was transported to a hospital by helicopter and is in critical condition, they said. A GoFundMe campaign for Washington, who is headed to Baylor University to compete on its acrobatic and tumbling team, has reached $120,000. It says she is “stable in the ICU and will have a long road to recovery.”

Roth suffered a graze wound on one of her legs, authorities said. Two other cheerleaders at the scene were not injured, the cheer company said on Facebook.

Rodriguez has been charged with deadly conduct, a third-degree felony, in what police have described as “an altercation … in the parking lot of HEB” in which “multiple shots were fired into a vehicle.” Additional or enhanced charges against Rodriguez are likely, police said. Detective Nathan Neitsch wrote in a probable cause complaint obtained by The Post that Rodriguez “intentionally and recklessly” discharged his gun at a white 2013 Kia carrying the cheerleaders.

Rodriguez is being held in Bastrop County Jail on a $500,000 bond, Elgin police said in a Wednesday news release. The investigation is ongoing.

Not much is known about Rodriguez, but authorities noted in a probable cause complaint obtained by The Post that he was “an individual known by Elgin Police Officers from previous law enforcement encounters.” Authorities did not give details on Rodriguez’s previous interaction with law enforcement.

Family members and coaches confirmed to local media that Washington has damage to multiple organs and had to have her spleen removed because of the shooting. Her father, Kelan Washington, told NBC that his daughter is now recuperating at the hospital. He added how proud he is of his daughter, who was born with just one lung.

“She’s as tough as they come,” he said.