Self Defense or Murder?

[bicker]

If you rob someone and get killed, thats your fault. I am NOT going to feel sorry for you.

I agree. However, that has nothing to do with how we feel about the person doing the killing. It is very possible for a person to have such a violent nature that despite the fact that they killed someone for whom society reasonably has no sympathy, their own actions in that regard still qualify them for suspicion or punitive action against them, by society.

 

[happygirl]

I agree with the victim defending himself.

I don't agree with him going back inside, looking for a gun and shooting the boy 5 more times.

If I'm attacked, I'd do what I can to protect myself. Once I'm out of danger, I'm not going to return to the scene to do more damage.

There is no way you can tell what you will do in that sort of situation until you are in it.

Do you really thought that guy work up that morning and said If I get the chance to kill someone I will.

 

[disneyjunkie]

I think the proper question to this case would be: Do you believe that the theives deserved what they got? Curious to hear responses to this question.

I believe everything that happened prior to the victim leaving the store was justified. What occurred when he returned was not.

I don't think the boy deserved to be killed.

 

[turkeymama]

I'm curious as to what this pharmacist's background is. The fact that he shot the first guy, walked away from him to chase out the second guy, walked past the first guy again, turned his back on him, got a second gun and shot him several more times. I can't say what he was thinking or how he was feeling, but he didn't appear to be frantic. He seemed like he was very alert, judging by his actions. I could be completely wrong, that was just my impression.

However, we have a few guns in the house, with plans to purchase at least one more in the near future. My husband is a former Marine. He has always been very clear on what I should do if I was able to use a gun on an intruder/assailant. Eliminate the threat. Period. But I think an intruder in an occupied home is there for reasons other than robbery. There is a high probability that they intend on assaulting the occupants of the home. Otherwise, they would break in to an empty house.

 

[Keli]

Self defense IMHO. Because once someone has threatened another person's life in such a manner they have to be responsible for the consequences.

You cannot just turn off fear fueled adrenaline. I know that I personally would see to it that the individual threatening me would not be able to hurt me if I had that power. I'd have so much fear pumping through me that I know I would keep shooting until I ran out of bullets.

I think maybe it's easier for me to envision that scenario since I was the victim of an armed robbery when I was a teenager working at a fast food restaurant. I was lucky to walk out of the situation alive and I am certain that if I had access to a gun I would have used it until I felt the threat was eliminated. I can still remember the fear that was flowing through me and the primal need to eradicate it completely immediately.

 

[GeorgeG]

I'm a firm believer in self-defense, but to leave to get another gun and return to shoot an attacker who is no longer a threat is a real stretch.

I agree there are two stages in this incident. Taking the attacker out of action, including killing him, is self-defense. The five follow-up shots appear to have been not called for. To say that was murder may or may not be technically correct, depending on further determination.

It is considered that if you have cause to defend yourself with a gun (or any other weapon) you have the right to kill the attacker. It is not uncommon to fire multiple shots until the attacker is stopped. In fact, it is recommended because a hesitation between shots could be fatal for the defender, and that includes law enforcement personnel. There is even a school of thought that says if you shoot, you should shoot to kill. However, and it's a big however, once the threat has been stopped, dead or alive, the act of self-defense also stops.

Did the robber deserve to die? My belief is that once you decide to commit a crime, you deserve the consequences. Consider it a bad career choice.

 

[Stitchfans]

IMO he murdered the boy

 

[mumom95]

The first shot was self defense.

The act of walking behind the counter to get another gun and then proceed to shoot an unconsious victim multiple times, was murder.

I agree they may have a hard time convicting him in that area, I wonder if the prosecution can have the trial moved.

 

[happygirl]

The first shot was self defense.

The act of walking behind the counter to get another gun and then proceed to shoot an unconsious victim multiple times, was murder.

I agree they may have a hard time convicting him in that area, I wonder if the prosecution can have the trial moved.

I guess I missed where it said he was unconcusis?

 

[disneyjunkie]

I guess I missed where it said he was unconcusis?

The full article is in the link the OP provided.

 

[happygirl]

Thanks I didn't even see the link.

 

[JessicaR]

I guess I missed where it said he was unconcusis?

Actually the article says 'wounded' it doesn't say unconscious. That changes things drastically. He could have been reaching for his weapon again even if he was laying there.

OK in the beginning of the article it says 'wounded', further down the prosecutor says unconscious. So which one is it? And how do they know?

 

[disneyjunkie]

Self-defense or Murder? Pharmacist kills holdup man
BY TIM TALLEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



OKLAHOMA CITY - Confronted by two holdup men, pharmacist Jerome Ersland pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore's security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into the wounded teenager as he lay on the floor.




Jerome Ersland is led out of court this week.Now Ersland has been charged with first-degree murder in a case that has stirred a furious debate over vigilante justice and self-defense and turned the pharmacist into something of a folk hero.

Ersland, 57, is free on $100,000 bail thanks to an anonymous donor. He has won praise from the pharmacy's owner, received an outpouring of cards, letters and checks from supporters and become the darling of conservative talk radio.

"His adrenaline was going. You're just thinking of survival," said John Paul Hernandez, 60, a retired Defense Department employee who grew up in the neighborhood. "All it was is defending your employee, business and livelihood. If I was in that position and that was me, I probably would have done the same thing."

District Attorney David Prater said Ersland was justified in shooting 16-year-old Antwun Parker once in the head, but not in firing the additional shots into his belly. The prosecutor said the teenager was unconscious, unarmed, lying on his back and posing no threat when Ersland fired what the medical examiner said were the fatal shots.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Raw video: Pharmacist kills would-be robber But many of those who have seen the video of the May 19 robbery attempt at Reliable Discount Pharmacy have concluded the teenager in the ski mask got what he deserved.

Mark Shannon, who runs a conservative talk show on Oklahoma City's KOTV, said callers have jammed his lines this week in support of Ersland, who wears a back brace on the job and told reporters that he is a disabled veteran of the Gulf War.

"There is no gray area," Shannon said. One caller "said he should have put all the shots in the head."

Don Spencer, a 49-year-old National Rifle Association member who lives in the small town of Meridian, 40 miles north of Oklahoma City, said the pharmacist did the right thing: "You shoot more than enough to make sure the threat has been removed."

Barbara Bergman, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, likened the public reaction to that of the case of Bernard Goetz, the New Yorker who shot four teenagers he said were trying to rob him when they asked for $5 on a subway in 1984.

Goetz was cleared of attempted murder and assault but convicted of illegal gun possession and served 8½ months in jail.

Bergman said those who claim they used deadly force in self-defense have to show they were "in reasonable fear of serious bodily injury."

The pharmacy is in a crime-ridden section of south Oklahoma City and had been robbed before.

The video shows two men bursting in, one of them pointing a gun at Ersland and two women working with the druggist behind the counter. Ersland fires a pistol, driving the gunman from the store and hitting Parker in the head as he puts on a ski mask.

Ersland chases the second man outside, then goes back inside, walks behind the counter with his back to Parker, gets a second handgun and opens fire.

Irven Box, Ersland's attorney, noted the outpouring of support for the pharmacist, including $2,000 in donations, and said: "I feel very good 12 people would not determine he committed murder in the first degree."

Under Oklahoma's "Make My Day Law" - passed in the late 1980s and named for one of Clint Eastwood's most famous movie lines - people can use deadly force when they feel threatened by an intruder inside their homes. In 2006, Oklahoma's "Stand Your Ground Law" extended that to anywhere a citizen has the right to be, such as a car or office.

"It's a 'Make-My-Day' case," Box said. "This guy came in, your money or your life. Mr. Ersland said, 'You're not taking my life."' The gunman "forfeited his life."

Box said that another person might have reacted differently, but he asked: "When do you turn off that adrenaline switch? When do you think you're safe? I think that's going to be the ultimate issue."

If convicted, Ersland could be sentenced to life in prison with or without parole, or receive the death penalty.

The second suspect in the holdup, a 14-year-old boy, was arrested Thursday and faces attempted armed robbery charges.

Ersland is white and the two suspects were black. Anthony Douglas, president of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called a news conference to praise the district attorney for bringing the murder charge. But he said the organization has taken no position on Ersland's guilt or innocence.

"We want the system to do its job," Douglas said.

Parker's parents also expressed relief that Ersland faces a criminal charge.

"He didn't have to shoot my baby like that," Parker's mother, Cleta Jennings, told TV station KOCO.

 

[JessicaR]

An autopsy determined Parker was alive after being shot in the head and died from abdominal wounds.

 

[happygirl]

I would think that the PA would say he was unconiscous to make it a better case for him.

 

[disneyjunkie]

I would think that the PA would say he was unconiscous to make it a better case for him.

The whole thing is on tape. The camera should show if the victim was still in danger when he killed the boy.

 

[JessicaR]

You can watch the video. Its too dark but aside from that I think the boy is cut off from the cameras view. Maybe not, maybe its just too dark for me to see it.

http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=5001&s=16856&p=1158

 

[Carly_Roach]

I'm letting my closet conservative out:

If you're going to walk into an establishment with the intent to rob it, you'd better be prepared to pay with your life. Period.

If I were on the jury I would not convict the pharmacist. That young man (teenaged or not) entered the pharmacy with, at minimum, an intent to steal and, at maximum, an attempt to shoot, maim or kill the innocent people working in that pharmacy. They didn't invite him in. He just decided to take what wasn't his.

Regardless of whether the pharmacist killed him with the first bullet or the sixth, the profit for robbery with a deadly weapon was (and should be) immediate death if the victim of the robbery has the means to exact it.

The pharacist was justified in doing what he did.

 

[Kimberly]

I'm letting my closet conservative out:

If you're going to walk into an establishment with the intent to rob it, you'd better be prepared to pay with your life. Period.

If I were on the jury I would not convict the pharmacist. That young man (teenaged or not) entered the pharmacy with, at minimum, an intent to steal and, at maximum, an attempt to shoot, maim or kill the innocent people working in that pharmacy. They didn't invite him in. He just decided to take what wasn't his.

Regardless of whether the pharmacist killed him with the first bullet or the sixth, the profit for robbery with a deadly weapon was (and should be) immediate death if the victim of the robbery has the means to exact it.

The pharacist was justified in doing what he did.

As a business owner, I agree entirely with this. I would defend my property and my livelihood with my life.

 

[merekc]

My initial reaction is as the relative of two pharmacists with many friends in that career, if someone enters the building with the intent to rob (and probably hurt/kill them), I would prefer they protect themselves at whatever cost. I would hate for my two kids to grow up without a father.

I know multiple people who have been robbed at gunpoint (including a pharmacist). By the grace of God, these people are still around. I could easily have been attending their funerals. You don't know what to expect when someone has the lack of conscience that allows them to feel right in robbing someone.

The thing that no one has mentioned that I think is a huge factor is that many people that rob pharmacies are not doing it for money they are doing it for drugs. This adds a completely different element to the crime. People on drugs are a different beast. They often have the adrenaline rush that gives them strength to handle more than a normal person. I've heard stories of someone needing several officers to get them down because they are so hopped up. Who is to say that this isn't running through that pharmacist's mind?

It is a sad situation no matter what.