I asked a former sheriff who is my daughter-in-laws father about this shooting. He says that you can shoot until the threat has stopped. Since the video camera does not show the robber lying on the floor I have no way of knowing what the man on the floor was doing. I did see he had a backpack on his back when he went into rob the pharmacy. He could have had a gun in that backpack. The pharmacists had no way of knowing if this young man had a gun on him. He had no way of knowing this robber was only 16 years old because he was wearing a ski mask. If someone is pointing a gun at me and they tell me they want my money and drugs I think they intend to use the gun. My fear would take over and I would be fighting for my life. Who knows if this pharmacists training in the military took over. I read someone else's comment about this and they said that the chemicals in the brain that make someone fight for their life could have caused this reaction.
On a local radio show today someone called in and said that this same pharmacy had been robbed two years ago and the robbers had been masked and threatened them. They said that the robbers tried to take one of the women employees with them when they left. I haven't read anything factual about this story.
I did find a rather amusing blog a minute ago. It tells how things might have worked out if the pharmacists would have been more loving. On this blog or forum it has quotes from the pharmacists.
To: Drew68
Apparently, Mr. Ersland needs to be "investigated" by The First Thug.
According to the First Thug, what Mr. Ersland should have done, when faced with a gun in his face, simply said, "I will uphold the values of this country; waterboarding is torture. I apologize for the criminal mistakes of previous administration."
At that point, Antwun's ice-cold heart will melt. He'll put down the gun and shake Mr. Ersland's hand out of respect. The two other accomplices will see this miraculous example of "Obama-bay-uh". They'll abandon their lives of crime and commit to distributing warm-fuzzies around the world!!!
Can you just feel the love oozing here?
36 posted on Fri May 22 16:14:19 2009 by kromike
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
Now the rest of the story.
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Man has no regrets defending Oklahoma City pharmacy (armed robber shot and killed)
Oklahoman ^ | 22 May 09 | Johnny Johnson
Posted on Fri May 22 15:48:45 2009 by Drew68
Jerome Ersland was back at work Thursday filling prescriptions and hoping that by taking the life of a 16-year-old boy two days earlier, he had saved others.
Rubbing an oversized bandage on his left forearm, where he said he was grazed by a robber’s bullet, Ersland related details of what he said was a highly organized hit on the Reliable Discount Pharmacy.
"I just regret anybody would get killed,” Ersland said. "But if I wouldn’t have been here, there would have been three people killed — the other pharmacist and the two techs.”
He also recalls the angry voices of people who gathered outside the pharmacy Tuesday night, shouting that he was a racist who unnecessarily took a life of the Seeworth Academy charter school student, Antwun Parker.
"There were a lot of black people gathered out there yelling and everything at my boss,” Ersland said.
An organized hit
After the pharmacy near SW 59 and Pennsylvania was robbed two years ago, the owner installed new security measures to try to make sure his employees would never again be forced to a back room and pistol-whipped. "We have a very good security system,” Ersland said, motioning to the magnetic door locks that won’t let anyone in or out of the store without permission. "The door locks, and they (robbers) knew that. They had cased it because they knew exactly what time to hit us when we’d have all of our narcotics out and our money out.”
About 10 minutes before 6 p.m., Ersland said, two robbers wearing ski masks waited for someone to leave the pharmacy and then grabbed the open door and threw down a board to stop the door from closing.
The robbers went in cursing and yelling, ordering employees to give them money and drugs, Ersland said.
Two women who were working behind the counter ran for a back room where they would be safe, but Ersland said he couldn’t run. Ersland said he’s a veteran with disabilities from wounds he received in Operation Desert Storm, wears a cumbersome back brace and just had his latest back surgery six weeks ago.
"All of a sudden, they started shooting,” he said. "They were attempting to kill me, but they didn’t know I had a gun. They said, ‘You’re gonna die.’ That’s when one of them shot at me, and that’s when he got my hand.”
Ersland said he was thrown against a wall, but managed to go for the semiautomatic in his pocket.
"And that’s when I started defending myself,” he said. "The first shot got him in the head, and that slowed him down so I could get my other gun.”
But as one robber hit the floor, Ersland said, a bullet from the other robber whizzed past his ear.
The pharmacist said he then got his second gun from a nearby drawer, a Taurus "Judge.”
After he had the big gun, Ersland said, the second robber ran.
But as he started to chase after the second robber, Ersland said, he looked back to see the 16-year-old he had shot in the head getting up again. Ersland said he then emptied the Kel-Tec .380 into the boy’s chest as he kept going after the second robber.
"I went after the other guy, but he was real fast and I’m crippled,” Ersland said.
Outside the pharmacy, he said he saw what he thought was a third black male in a car with the engine running and reaching for what appeared to be a shotgun.
"I pulled out my ‘Judge’ and pointed it right between his eyes and he floored it,” Ersland said.
The investigation
Because of the sensitive nature of the investigation, police said they could not confirm any of Ersland’s story, including whether Ersland was shot, whether the robbers ever fired on him or even if Parker was armed. On Thursday, police were still looking for the second robber, described as a black man in his 20s, about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, and weighing about 175 pounds. The man was last seen wearing a red shirt and dark pants.
A man was arrested about a block away after crashing a stolen car that fit the description Ersland gave, but police said the man has not been linked to the robbery.
After the gunfire
When he went back in the pharmacy, Ersland said, he called police.
"I asked if the girls were all right, and they were in the back crying,” he said. "I was glad to know they were alive. We were lucky and I’m glad I defended us, because I feel that a person has a right to defend themselves at their home or at their work. People deserve to be safe and not be afraid of people that want to take money when they don’t work for it.”
That’s what the Second Amendment and the state’s "concealed carry” license are for, he said.
"Fortunately, God made them miss me, except for this minor scratch,” Ersland said.
"I was able to return fire and protect the girls’ lives. God was helping me.”
At 9:00 am Mr. Ersland will be appearing in court to see if he can get bail. I'm hoping he has a lot of supporters there and I'm hoping he is given the bail and other people will help him. I know he must be feeling terrible. It's not like he just went to the store for ice cream. He shot and killed a young boy. It's sad that this young boy was killed but he made a choice to walk in a business and try to rob it. He knew what he was doing was wrong or he wouldn't have needed to hide his face. There are videos of this robbery and the robbers put a board down to hold the door open so they had planned out this robbery with care. The only thing they didn't plan on was being resisted. I'm sorry a young boy has to die like this. I would rather hear of him doing wonderful things with his life but he was there for drugs. At that early an age robbing for money and drugs makes me think he would have had a long life of crime. We need to get our sons and daughters off the drugs and onto fun things they could be doing. Where were this young man's parents? They hold some of the blame unless they had him in church and kept him from hanging out with criminals. They failed at not letting their son hang out with criminals. There were at least three young men involved. They hold some of the responsibility for this. Were they going to use the drugs for themselves or sell them? They were no doubt addicted to drugs and if they were going to sell these drugs they would have put many other young people at risk of addiction. What about the teachers at school? Did they see something that they could have reported to the parents or the police?
One young man is dead and his life is over. One pharmacists who is a disabled Vet is now in jail waiting his hearing for bail. His life is now messed up with legal problems, people calling him racists, and threatening him. Not a good situation. The other people who were victims are the other pharmacists and their aids. These people were terrorized too. The choices of these young men has caused a lot of bad things to happen. The pharmacists was working hard, minding his own business along with the other employees. They did not deserve to have their worlds turned up-side down and inside-out just because these young men wanted something and didn't want to work to buy it.
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