Okla. pharmacist sentenced to life in murder case (shot injured teen 5 times)

[onehandle]

Source: AP

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A pharmacist has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in the shooting death of a teenager who tried to rob the south Oklahoma City store where he worked.

Jerome Ersland had no reaction and said nothing as Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott handed down the sentence Monday.

As the 59-year-old Ersland left the courtroom he told a reporter the sentence is "an injustice of a monumental proportion."

In May, a jury convicted Ersland of first-degree murder in the May 2009 shooting of 16-year-old Antwun Parker.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/okla-pharmacist-sentenced-life-murder-case-151353876.html

[SpankMe]

1. Wow. Signs of real justice, even in Oklahoma. n/t

[naaman fletcher]

4. I think life is way too much

Gunfights are not like the movies where you have all this time to think clearly about everything you do. This teen deserved the first bullet that he got. Did he "deserve" the following ones? Probably not. But a guy (the pharmacist) was simply minding his own business when these guys came in and threatend his life. The charge and sentence should have been much closer to a manslaughter sort of deal.

[Xithras]

23. You should really watch the video.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=eed_1243733340

There's no "probably not" about it.

The pharmacist initially shot the robber in self-defense. That's clear. The pharmacist them walked outside of the store to check on the accomplice, walked back into the store, walked to the back of the store, walked BACK to the front of the store, stood over the wounded and bleeding robber, and executed him on the floor with several point-blank shots.

There was no danger to him or anyone else in the store. He had time to cool off. The threat was gone, and this guy just executed him. I don't know if he deserves life, but a few decades in prison will do him good.

[naaman fletcher]

25. I saw it,

What makes you think he had enough time to cool off? Have you ever been in a life or death struggle?

[crim son]

26. I tend to agree.

Too many seem to believe that death is the appropriate punishment in cases like these. I wonder how many of them call themselves Christians?

[freshwest]

34. Thanks, I didn't see the video. Yet he screams injustice. Tea Partier or temporary insanity?

[joshcryer]

38. What strikes me about that video is his indifference when he executed the kid.

Was the kid begging for his life? I don't know if we'll ever know, but it was cold blooded as hell.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. Republicans think they can turn this country into an Clint Eastwood movie

Buncha trigger-happy assholes.

[naaman fletcher]

5. It was the teen and his accomplice who started it, FYI. Nt

[Demonaut]

3. life was too much, all bets are off when guns are used

shooting him after he was already down was cowardly and criminal

[rocktivity]

6. CUE THE VONAGE THEME!

:woohoo:
Way to balance out the Casey Anthony verdict -- ying yang strikes again!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3900020

:bounce:
rocktivity

[MilesColtrane]

7. It doesn't appear as if the assailant he shot was armed.

Ersland chased off the guy with the gun, then walked back behind the counter, reloaded, and executed the wounded teen.

Surveillance video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJZdFcDmllQ

[Recursion]

9. Would you trust your life to the assumption that the accomplice...

...of a man who just pointed a gun at you didn't have a gun in his pocket?

[MilesColtrane]

15. That justifies training your weapon on guy on the floor or retreating.

That doesn't justify walking up to him, pointing your gun at his head and pulling the trigger.

The fact was that he had been shot in the head, was on the ground, and unarmed.

[Occulus]

29. Yes, we know you're bloodthirsty.

You don't have to wave it around like a flag.

[MilesColtrane]

17. Slight correction:

Ersland didn't reload. He retrieved a second gun from a drawer.

[DreamSmoker]

8. Right out of Law and Order

This mirrors a episode on Law ad Order many years ago....
It was a Foreign Pawn Shop owner who Shot Robbers to death in his Store..
Robers were trapped between the front door and another the store Owner put in to stop the Robers from entering un noticed
previously... It was a deliberate Trap set by the Store owner....

Notice that it appears that 100% of the time when Police shoot anybody.. They Get off.. Even when Video shows Murder By Cop..
But put anyone else in this situation... The Tables turn...

Bottom line is this Robbery was planned by more than the two Suspects..
This Judge in this Vid appears to be a Black Woman..
On its Face...This is obviously a Railroad Case...

This would not wash in Texas...
You can shoot in the Back and Kill Un Armed Burglars running away there and be found innocent..

Just more Injustice from this Corrupted Justice System...

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

11. Sick

yup

[trud]

12. sorry

If I were the victim of a crime, I'd be so terrified that if I had a gun, I'd try to make sure none of the criminals could possibly harm me. If you don't want to get shot, don't commit crimes.

[Lucky Luciano]

13. I don't disagree. nt

[dropkickpa]

19. What if the kid killed were white and the pharmacist black?

Changes things, don't it? He calmly WALKED past the dying kid on the ground to retrieve his second gun, then deliberately walked BACK to the kid and deliberately shot him again multiple times. Sick.

[Lucky Luciano]

20. Skin color irrelevant. In the Long Island pharmacy murders last month,

...a far better outcome would have been if the white robber was cut down.

A thug is a thug. They know the risks of a life of evil. They should deal with it. The pharmacist in OK does not know what weapons the sshole has in his pocket while he lays on the floor. I probably would have done the same thing and gone to jail just because some asshole fucked with the wrong guy.

I have only shot a gun once though and generally have no use for guns...of course, I don't own a retail establishment with a cash register either.

[trud]

21. dropkick

No, it doesn't. I had no idea of the races of the people involved.

[ChrisBorg]

22. Evidently it changes it for you.

[Posteritatis]

28. Aw, poor widdle executioner

Real classy post otherwise, too. You should be proud.

[Blue_Tires]

14. wow...surprised to see

when this happens in VA (even in very questionable circumstances), the shooter usually gets a congratulation from the governor...

[JonLP24]

16. I remember the flame war when this story broke

IMO the guy went way too far.

[rocktivity]

18. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3900020

You're welcome.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[-..__...]

24. His mistake wasn't shooting the thug 5 times afterwards...

his mistake was his inability to administer a fatal shot with his first squeeze of the trigger.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

27. How dow we know it wasn't. Do we know if the kid would have lived after the first shot?

Did that come out at trial?

[LisaL]

30. Well apparently he was still alive when shot five more times.

But I don't think anyone could guarantee he was going to live after the first shot in the head.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

48. Nobody has said the caliber of the bullets, which makes a difference.

Assuming the kid was shot in the head with a minimum of a .32 he would have died anyway.
If you shoot someone point blank in the head with a bullet as small as a .22 or .25 they probably would have died, but it would have taken longer than a shot with a bigger bullet.

Retrieving a second gun and plugging the robber was heat of the moment, part of the same criminal transaction after chasing the second robber. I don't think retrieving the second gun was premeditation. I would have been scared to death too.

Antwun, because his mother can't spell "Antoine" or even "Tony", the victim, was all of sixteen years old and should have been in school.

Life for the white pharmacist sounds like racial retaliation by the judge for his plugging of a piece of scum who was stupid enough to attempt to rob a drug store.


yes I am a lawyer, and I worked at the courthouse for twenty years.

[Paladin]

43. Hey, Everybody Makes Mistakes, Right?

Stay the fuck out of my neighborhood, by the way.....

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

31. Ersland kept ruining his credibility

He was his worst enemy.

Many contradictions

The medical evidence about Ersland's back is the latest instance in the highly publicized case where the pharmacist has been caught in an apparent lie.

His first account to police about the shooting was contradicted by recordings from drugstore security cameras. He later changed his account and said he had been confused by stress and adrenaline.

Also, his claim to police of killing before, in combat in Iraq during the first Gulf War, was contradicted by his military records. Those records show Ersland was the pharmacy chief at the military hospital at Altus Air Force Base in southwestern Oklahoma when allied forces fought in Iraq in 1991.

He told police detectives his back was injured during an artillery attack in Iraq. He said one of his vertebrae got blasted into thirds. “The three pieces of that one vertebra are going around by my heart and my lungs and my spinal cord, and they can't operate,” he said on the night of the shooting. Ersland continued to claim he had a broken back even after prosecutors got the records showing he was not in an artillery blast in the Gulf War....

Read more: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-pharmacist-convicted-of-murder-faked-back-injury-examination-finds/article/3584416#ixzz1RqIAXYn5

He also claimed that he had been shot in the wrist.

Jurors also heard testimony Wednesday that Ersland sought medical treatment on July 2, 2009, for what he said was an infected gunshot wound suffered during a shoot-out inside the pharmacy. Prosecutors say he faked the injury in an effort to support his defense.

A Chickasha physician, Laura Black-Wicks, testified an X-ray showed Ersland had two small metal fragments in his left wrist. She said Ersland removed the fragments himself while she was away from the examination room. “I was a little shocked,” she said of his action. She said Ersland asked her not to document in his medical records that he took out the fragments. “I explained to him I could not do that,” she testified.

The doctor said Ersland asked her in January 2010 for a prescription for an anti-inflammatory gel. She said he wanted the prescription label to say it was for a gunshot wound.

Police witnesses have said there is no evidence the robber with the gun fired it before fleeing. The second robber, Jevontai Ingram, now 16, has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for his role in Parker's death. Also, a paramedic testified earlier Ersland had a small abrasion on his left wrist the night of the robbery but the superficial injury was not a gunshot wound.

Read more: http://newsok.com/jurors-begin-deliberations-in-oklahoma-city-pharmacists-murder-trial/article/3571241#ixzz1RqPfFc1R

A witness refuted one version of his story.

...Michael Powell also contacted police on May 26, 2009, after hearing media accounts that the pharmacist claimed a man in a white car pointed a shotgun at him outside the pharmacy. She told police she was bothered by the claim.

“At no time did she see a white car stopped on SW 58th Street or see Ersland confront anyone in any cars,” police reported. “Powell felt the white car story Ersland was telling was a lie.”

In one account of what happened, Ersland wrote he saw a black man raise up a shotgun outside the drugstore.

“But I got the drop on him and pointed the store gun at him. Although he was in my sights, I did not shoot him as he posed no immediate threat to me, and he drove off extremely fast,” Ersland wrote in a July 8, 2009, letter to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-woman-says-accused-pharmacist-jerome-jay-ersland-endangered-her-son/article/3563639

[udbcrzy2]

33. Wow, typical convict trying to play the innocent act. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

49. Very useful reading the info. you've posted. Confirms what seemed clear about his "character." n/t

[udbcrzy2]

32. Kind of a South Park type

He reminds me of the South Park clip 'it's coming right for us'. An excuse to kill and mutilate someone who is defenseless.
I do not condone the robbery and the first shot, but what followed is simply evil.

Here is the South Park clip
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/149674/its-coming-right-for-us

[tabasco]

35. "Shot injured teen." LOL

Shot a gun-wielding, armed robber teen, who got what he deserved.

I think a 10-year sentence with five served would be justified.

This was heat of battle.

[Skittles]

37. honestly, I agree

and the skin colors are irrelevant - one of those guys went looking for trouble

[CBGLuthier]

41. The one he shot never had a gun.

Work on your fact collecting there will ya.

[tabasco]

42. No time for a pat-down search with a semi-auto waving in your face,

is there?

[Paladin]

44. Wipe Your Upper Lip, You're Getting Excited...... (n/t)

[tabasco]

47. Astute analysis.

Masterful counterstroke. Love your hat.

:dunce:

[christx30]

36. There need to be more

legal protections for people defending themselves. If a person knows that there is a very good chance that he will not walk away from his crime, maybe that would be a good deterrant against crime. Esp. if he knows that probably nothing will happen the victim.
And I'm worried what this case will do the cause of self defense in this country. Will it give robbery victims pause in exercisingtheir rights to self defense?

[boppers]

39. Yes, you should pause, and ask yourself: "Will this send me to prison"?

Once the threat is mitigated, you cannot continue using deadly force.

Simple as that.

[Abq_Sarah]

40. He had plenty of legal protection

The state didn't have a problem with the first shot. They had a problem with him walking back to his office, with his back turned towards the supposedly deadly threat, picking up a pistol, walking back and standing over the supposed "deadly threat" and unloading into his torso.

If you're in fear for your life, you're not going to stroll on past the threat with your back to him for several feet and then walk right back and lean over him. If you can do all that, the threat has already been neutralized.

[WatsonT]

45. Shooting the kid was justified

reloading and shooting him once he was no longer a threat was not.

I don't know if first degree murder is appropriate as it's unlikely he planned this out in advance. 2nd degree seems better.

But I won't lose any sleep over this verdict.

[plumbob]

46. Here's a story with more detail.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/oklahoma-pharmacist-dead-robbers-accomplices-life-prison/story?id=14053802