The Strange Case of Jerome Ersland
The only thing strange about Jerome Ersland’s case is the outcome.
I wrote a couple of blog posts defending the actions of Jerome Ersland back in June of 2009. Constant Readers might recall that Mr. Ersland is the Oklahoma City pharmacist who shot it out with a couple of thugs that spring. He was charged with murder for giving the one he dropped five good-bye shots.
Mr. Ersland—formerly Lt. Colonel Ersland—is now convicted of first-degree manslaughter. He conceivably faces life in prison.
I said it then, and I’ll say it now, in the simplest possible way: THIS IS BULLSHIT!
I heard a big-brain legal common tater saying this morning that the judge will have a great deal of leeway in the sentencing guidelines. I sincerely hope so. Let’s put Mr. Ersland on probation for a couple of years, and send him home to his family.
The incident in the drugstore is caught with disturbing clarity on tape. Two teenaged thugs enter, and one brandishes what I identify as a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol in the fashion they learned from those gangsta rap videos. Gunfire is exchanged. Ersland’s watch is blown off his wrist by a bullet, and one of the thugs goes down. The other one—the one with the visible firearm—flees, and Ersland rushes to the door behind him. There are two women—a mother and her daughter—in the back of the store and they are screaming, obviously terrified. Ersland returns to the interior of the pharmacy, and either retrieves a second weapon or reloads the one he was packing. The downed robber is slightly off-camera, but was still moving, according to all the witnesses. Ersland gave him five good-bye shots, ending the incident for all intents and purposes.
The dead perpetrator was subsequently found to be unarmed, hence the charges against Mr. Ersland.
I taught combat shooting for a number of years. When prospective students said they only wanted to defend their homes, I advised them to trade their handguns for .12 gauge pump shotguns; the slide being racked is an unmistakable deterrent, and will save the moral anguish of the aftermath, when a life has been taken. The dumbest criminal in God’s creation knows what that sound is, and will unass the area PDQ.
For those who persevered with handguns, I think my teachings were sound.
I was a big fan of Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger when I was a kid. He’d use those silver bullets to shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand, and justice would be done without anyone getting killed. In that perfect world of black-and-white TV, that’s a nice way for things to end.
After some initial classroom training—which included the admonition that if you’re not prepared to take a human life, you need to leave now and trade your weapon for a can of pepper spray—I’d break out a basic silhouette target and point to the approximate center. “This is the X-ring. This is dead-center mass. This is what you shoot for. No head shots, no shooting the gun out of their hand. You don’t shoot someone a little bit. You go for this X-ring, and you keep firing until they’re on the ground and not moving, or your weapon is empty. Dead-center mass, and light ‘em up like the Fourth of July. Once they’re down, you reload before approaching.”
Since I taught civilians—normal, decent people to whom the notion of killing ran against every moral precept they’d been taught from childhood—I routinely left out the postscript that you give the fallen adversary a good-bye shot to the head. I also left out the full-security detail that when you’re close enough, you poke them in the eyeball with your gun barrel. A clever, wounded enemy can play dead until your back is turned, but no human being can help flinching when poked in the eye. You learn this stuff later on, in the real world. When Mr. Ersland was Lt. Colonel Ersland, he probably had a competent instructor who taught him all this.
Yes, it’s brutal. When the guns come out, all bets are off. There are lives at stake, and odds are it’s going to be your life against the other guy. There can be no hesitation, no contemplation. You’ll either do it, or you won’t. If you don’t, the other guy wins, and you—and possibly loved ones, innocent bystanders, or military teammates—are dead.
This concept used to be summed up in a single sentence: “Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.”
I don’t know where they found those jurors in Oklahoma City. Mr. Ersland had robbery victims cowering in the back of the store, and the fallen perpetrator was still moving. His hands were not visible. He may have had a weapon. Hindsight is 20/20; it’s unfortunate the robber was unarmed, but he should not have been a party to a robbery attempt where his buddy was blazing away at an aspirin-peddler. When the guns come out, you’ve bought the ticket, and you’re going to take the ride. It may not turn out the way you expect.
When I lived in Texas in the ‘80s, a Dallas station carried footage of an angry father whose son had been kidnapped and molested by a trusted teacher. In a premeditated act, the father waited in the Baton Rouge airport until the ideal moment, and blew the bastard’s head off with a .44 Magnum on TV. Dan Rather warned us that evening that what followed was not for the faint of heart. The father was sentenced to five years’ probation. Jerome Ersland didn’t premeditate anything. He was counting pills and filling someone’s prescription when these thugs walked in. I would've hung the jury; holding out against conviction no matter what.
I’m not a bloodthirsty psychopath. There is no greater anguish or moral burden than taking a human life. Some people—I want to believe most people—simply cannot do it, no matter what the circumstances. There is no fault or dishonor in this; it’s just likely to have an unfortunate outcome. I’m a simple man, and part of my simple-mindedness is a grudging realization that there may come times in your life when you have to make a stand. Hopefully, for most folks, that’s nothing more dramatic than deciding what kind of topping you want on the pizza, or where to go on vacation.
Conversely, when you’re backed against a wall with a knife at your throat, or staring down the yawning chasm of a gun barrel, there is no time to thoughtfully consider the moral implications of what our parents taught us. If you hesitate to reflect on what God teaches us, you may be meeting the Creator a moment later. Sometimes it’s better to apologize than ask permission.
Please join me in prayer that Mr. Ersland will receive justice at the sentencing hearing. He has a burden to bear for his actions, and he will not carry it lightly. He needs to go home with an admonition: “Don’t do that again!”
What he did was the right thing, but he has to carry that for the rest of his life. That’s enough.
I wrote a couple of blog posts defending the actions of Jerome Ersland back in June of 2009. Constant Readers might recall that Mr. Ersland is the Oklahoma City pharmacist who shot it out with a couple of thugs that spring. He was charged with murder for giving the one he dropped five good-bye shots.
Mr. Ersland—formerly Lt. Colonel Ersland—is now convicted of first-degree manslaughter. He conceivably faces life in prison.
I said it then, and I’ll say it now, in the simplest possible way: THIS IS BULLSHIT!
I heard a big-brain legal common tater saying this morning that the judge will have a great deal of leeway in the sentencing guidelines. I sincerely hope so. Let’s put Mr. Ersland on probation for a couple of years, and send him home to his family.
The incident in the drugstore is caught with disturbing clarity on tape. Two teenaged thugs enter, and one brandishes what I identify as a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol in the fashion they learned from those gangsta rap videos. Gunfire is exchanged. Ersland’s watch is blown off his wrist by a bullet, and one of the thugs goes down. The other one—the one with the visible firearm—flees, and Ersland rushes to the door behind him. There are two women—a mother and her daughter—in the back of the store and they are screaming, obviously terrified. Ersland returns to the interior of the pharmacy, and either retrieves a second weapon or reloads the one he was packing. The downed robber is slightly off-camera, but was still moving, according to all the witnesses. Ersland gave him five good-bye shots, ending the incident for all intents and purposes.
The dead perpetrator was subsequently found to be unarmed, hence the charges against Mr. Ersland.
I taught combat shooting for a number of years. When prospective students said they only wanted to defend their homes, I advised them to trade their handguns for .12 gauge pump shotguns; the slide being racked is an unmistakable deterrent, and will save the moral anguish of the aftermath, when a life has been taken. The dumbest criminal in God’s creation knows what that sound is, and will unass the area PDQ.
For those who persevered with handguns, I think my teachings were sound.
I was a big fan of Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger when I was a kid. He’d use those silver bullets to shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand, and justice would be done without anyone getting killed. In that perfect world of black-and-white TV, that’s a nice way for things to end.
After some initial classroom training—which included the admonition that if you’re not prepared to take a human life, you need to leave now and trade your weapon for a can of pepper spray—I’d break out a basic silhouette target and point to the approximate center. “This is the X-ring. This is dead-center mass. This is what you shoot for. No head shots, no shooting the gun out of their hand. You don’t shoot someone a little bit. You go for this X-ring, and you keep firing until they’re on the ground and not moving, or your weapon is empty. Dead-center mass, and light ‘em up like the Fourth of July. Once they’re down, you reload before approaching.”
Since I taught civilians—normal, decent people to whom the notion of killing ran against every moral precept they’d been taught from childhood—I routinely left out the postscript that you give the fallen adversary a good-bye shot to the head. I also left out the full-security detail that when you’re close enough, you poke them in the eyeball with your gun barrel. A clever, wounded enemy can play dead until your back is turned, but no human being can help flinching when poked in the eye. You learn this stuff later on, in the real world. When Mr. Ersland was Lt. Colonel Ersland, he probably had a competent instructor who taught him all this.
Yes, it’s brutal. When the guns come out, all bets are off. There are lives at stake, and odds are it’s going to be your life against the other guy. There can be no hesitation, no contemplation. You’ll either do it, or you won’t. If you don’t, the other guy wins, and you—and possibly loved ones, innocent bystanders, or military teammates—are dead.
This concept used to be summed up in a single sentence: “Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.”
I don’t know where they found those jurors in Oklahoma City. Mr. Ersland had robbery victims cowering in the back of the store, and the fallen perpetrator was still moving. His hands were not visible. He may have had a weapon. Hindsight is 20/20; it’s unfortunate the robber was unarmed, but he should not have been a party to a robbery attempt where his buddy was blazing away at an aspirin-peddler. When the guns come out, you’ve bought the ticket, and you’re going to take the ride. It may not turn out the way you expect.
When I lived in Texas in the ‘80s, a Dallas station carried footage of an angry father whose son had been kidnapped and molested by a trusted teacher. In a premeditated act, the father waited in the Baton Rouge airport until the ideal moment, and blew the bastard’s head off with a .44 Magnum on TV. Dan Rather warned us that evening that what followed was not for the faint of heart. The father was sentenced to five years’ probation. Jerome Ersland didn’t premeditate anything. He was counting pills and filling someone’s prescription when these thugs walked in. I would've hung the jury; holding out against conviction no matter what.
I’m not a bloodthirsty psychopath. There is no greater anguish or moral burden than taking a human life. Some people—I want to believe most people—simply cannot do it, no matter what the circumstances. There is no fault or dishonor in this; it’s just likely to have an unfortunate outcome. I’m a simple man, and part of my simple-mindedness is a grudging realization that there may come times in your life when you have to make a stand. Hopefully, for most folks, that’s nothing more dramatic than deciding what kind of topping you want on the pizza, or where to go on vacation.
Conversely, when you’re backed against a wall with a knife at your throat, or staring down the yawning chasm of a gun barrel, there is no time to thoughtfully consider the moral implications of what our parents taught us. If you hesitate to reflect on what God teaches us, you may be meeting the Creator a moment later. Sometimes it’s better to apologize than ask permission.
Please join me in prayer that Mr. Ersland will receive justice at the sentencing hearing. He has a burden to bear for his actions, and he will not carry it lightly. He needs to go home with an admonition: “Don’t do that again!”
What he did was the right thing, but he has to carry that for the rest of his life. That’s enough.
posted by Robert at 3:52 PM
7 Comments:
Hey Possum,
I agree wholeheartedly, my good friend. Thanks for expressing my thoughts so well.
You probably know that I've also had a few other thoughts lately. Why haven't you gotten around to expressing them too? I'm waiting.
(:D) Best regards...
He certainly doesn't belong in prison. There's no room for a guy like that...
I certainly hope that there's an appeal...
"Gunfire is exchanged" - Uh, no it wasn't. There was no "exchange" of gunfire. Forensics proved that Ersland was the only person to discharge a weapon that day.
"Ersland’s watch is blown off his wrist by a bullet" - Ersland lied about that to bolster his story. He bandaged his wrist that he received no injury to - thus, he fabricated evidence. ...just like he lied to Police about being a combat veteran, suffering from PTSD, and being injured during combat in the Gulf. Oh yeah, he also miraculously found a .22 shell casing while alone in the pharmacy, a casing that all of the police that had been through there in the previous couple of days, an entire forensics investigations team that had conducted a thorough search of the site, and all of his co-workers had somehow managed to overlook.
"Ersland rushes to the door behind him" - ...and follows him out, chasing him down the street, carelessly discharging his weapon in a populated area as he went, almost hitting a mother and her infant.
"...but was still moving, according to all the witnesses" - By "all the witnesses", you mean Ersland.
"The dead perpetrator was subsequently found to be unarmed, hence the charges against Mr. Ersland." - The fact he was unarmed had nothing to do with the charges against Ersland. Ersland was charged because, with malice aforethought, he executed the robber while he posed no reasonable threat. That's 1st degree murder. If Ersland would have stopped after the first shot, he'd be a free man today - regardless of whether that particular robber was armed or not. With the first shot, Ersland ended the threat. He then chose to execute the incapacitated robber.
"Mr. Ersland had robbery victims cowering in the back of the store" - That he chose to leave alone in the store with one of the robbers that he apparently felt still posed a real threat.
"...where his buddy was blazing away at an aspirin-peddler." - Again, this was a fabrication on Ersland's part. It was Ersland that opened fire. Nobody, other than Ersland, discharged any weapon that day.
"Jerome Ersland didn’t premeditate anything." - According to Oklahoma law, he did. QUOTED: "Title 21. Crimes and Punishments, Chapter 24 Section 701.7 - Murder in the First Degree - (a) A person commits murder in the first degree when that person unlawfully and with malice aforethought causes the death of another human being. Malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a human being, which is manifested by external circumstances capable of proof."
Ersland admitted that he had deliberate intention - he admitted malice aforethought. So, that part of the law was fulfilled. The only question was: Was the killing lawful? The jury didn't think so, as to be lawful there would have had to have been a reasonable fear of imminent serious injury or death to himself or others. The Jury felt that Ersland's fear - if he even had one (he CERTAINLY didn't act as though he did) - was not reasonable. They, for some strange reason, felt that it's not reasonable to fear imminent serious injury or death from someone who's lying face down in a pool of their own blood, slowly dying from a bullet lodged inside their brain. Especially after you step over that person, and with your back to him the entire time, go and retrieve another weapon - because you've spent all of the ammunition in your first weapon chasing someone down a populated street, firing repeatedly at them, trying to shoot them in the back - then returning to the "threatening" person, and, standing over them, at close range, pumping five more rounds into their back.
"Please join me in prayer that Mr. Ersland will receive justice at the sentencing hearing." - It looks like your prayers worked! Ersland has been sentenced, and he got life. He most certainly received Justice.
Mr. VH:
With all due respect, do you have some bona fides in this case? Were you one of the jurors, an attorney on either side, or even an extremely fascinated spectator who followed along from the public gallery in the courtroom or the daily coverage in the newspaper?
My "research" is based on general reportage, speculation, and my own experiences with use of lethal force in unanticipated circumstances. If you be so kind as to provide public record citations for your assertions, and they prove to be valid, I will offer a public recantation of my proclamation that Jerome Ersland is a "hero."
Like my research methods, his actions may have been "unsound" as to resolving the situation, but I cannot call an elderly man in marginal health a "premeditated murderer" when he is suddenly forced into a thug's game for mortal stakes. I think his response was entirely reasonable.
One of the few things from this article you didn't take issue with or put in quotation marks was my assertion that if faced with a similar situation, I'll "light [you] up like the Fourth of July." I would do this if you pointed a cap-pistol at me or mine. If I'm wrong in the aftermath, it's better to apologize than ask permission, and I'll lay flowers and remorse at your headstone.
My father was murdered by a serial killer, and I have been in military combat and civilian gunfights. Perhaps this colors my perception of whatever happened in that Oklahoma City pharmacy--and I'm sure it does--but unless you've been there and done it, you can have no concept of what it's like.
Thank you for your input on this. If you can go a step further in proving me wrong, and validate your statements, I will admit I'm wrong. Until then, I will stand by my point of view.
Oh, and I left out the doctrine of "equal culpability." If you are a participant in an armed robbery, and your partner kills someone, you are equally gulity of murder under federal and state statutes. If you are an unarmed accomplice and tag along with your homey while he rips off a drugstore at gunpoint, and you end up dead on the floor, well, that's kind of the same thing, ain't it?
Thanks for writing an extra blog post for me.
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