Jerome Ersland found guilty..

I just watched the live verdict, they found Jerome Ersland guilty of first degree murder with the jury asking for life sentence... I'm not sure what to think at the moment...

I'm not surprised. It was a hard case to support.

Robbing a pharmacy is a more heinous crime than a regular burglary. I'm sure the teenager was a good boy who was turning his life around and just needed some medication.

Maybe the pharmacist went overboard, was angry at being robbed. He shouldn't have pumped six rounds into the 'kid' on camera. That's just poor impulse control.

Burglars have to make a living too.

If he hadn't walked back into the store and gone behind the counter and gone back to the perp and then shot him more this case would have been over long ago. The fact he willfully went back and shot him so many times did him in. The perp got what he had coming but so did Mr. Ersland. The perp was already down for the count. THATS MY .02 AND OPINION.

I just saw the video earlier. I'm not sure what other choices the jury had to convict the guy of, but I can't blame them for convicting him of something. The guy went WAY overboard.

A cold blooded murderer got what he deserved


they have a website set up for this guy where you can make donations to support his "100,000$ per year bail"..... of course nowhere on the website do they mention that he walked up to an unconcious kid and put a handful of bullets into him for no other reason than to murder him.

Like I had commented when the story and video first hit the news, I had a firearms instructor once, who did a great job of explaining "shoot to stop" versus "shoot to kill":

"Shoot center mass to stop the threat. The moment the threat is over, stop shooting. How many times should you shoot? As many as it takes to stop the threat. How many shots is 'too much'? Well, when the entrance wound, exit wound, and the hole in the floor all line up, that's one too many."

That last part was what got Mr. Ersland.

KBCraig said:

Like I had commented when the story and video first hit the news, I had a firearms instructor once, who did a great job of explaining "shoot to stop" versus "shoot to kill":

"Shoot center mass to stop the threat. The moment the threat is over, stop shooting. How many times should you shoot? As many as it takes to stop the threat. How many shots is 'too much'? Well, when the entrance wound, exit wound, and the hole in the floor all line up, that's one too many."

That last part was what got Mr. Ersland.

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I agree! I you go back to shoot some more, you done screwed up!
Thats why you shoot to stop the threat. "All it takes is one shot". 45acp :dude:

I wholeheartedly disagree with the verdict. These criminals would be back to do more harm to someone else. If someone can explain what taking out the criminal permanently is a bad thing, I'm all ears.

protias said:

I wholeheartedly disagree with the verdict. These criminals would be back to do more harm to someone else. If someone can explain what taking out the criminal permanently is a bad thing, I'm all ears.

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Because you are not the judge, jury, and executioner. If you were, then be wary of the person you accidentally cut off on the road, etc because nobody is perfect and eventually breaks some stupid little law and you have said it's ok to execute you as well. You can say some stupid law doesn't equal death, but tell that to the person who is your judge and jury.

I think we've all done some things in our youth that we should not have done, some of them illegal and even arrestable.

I'm now an extremely moral and law-abiding citizen and I learned this on my own. Shoplifting a comic book as a kid and being arrested would NOT have helped me learn anything, nor did being beat for lying about my grandmother giving me money (25 cents) help me become a big advocate for the truth (I never lie, though sometimes I don't say anything).

Now, if you torture small animals and stuff and move up to starting fires and then some, chances are you need intervention and maybe life-long incarceration. Like-wise if you are a pedo you are not going to change and even getting depo-provera doesn't change the compulsion. Those people should be sent to an island of adults only, but society releases them (duh).

If someone gets to the point of armed robbing a store then if they get killed it is a fitting punishment even if they personally didn't have the gun - they knew there was a chance of mortal outcome.

I also think that getting more than one DUI where a person has been harmed should be a deal-breaker for driving and more than three with no sequelae should also result in permanent license removal and prison for the fourth. Those are not victimless crimes.

Anyway...I do agree the Pharmacist, though maybe under the throes of PTSD and not thinking clearly had a rage problem when he went back and shot the guy. Should he go to jail for life? NO, because rage can be treated in a relatively short time. He made a mistake but he didn't INITIATE the problem he had it foisted upon him by a law breaker.

Video for those who are unfamiliar with the incident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSBBlEhmWNQ&feature=related

Wait...what?

JBURGII said:

I just watched the live verdict, they found Jerome Ersland guilty of first degree murder with the jury asking for life sentence... I'm not sure what to think at the moment...

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Not a righteous kill but I don't see first degree murder in the video. Maybe more evidence of 1st Degree came out at trial or maybe an OJ jury. Just don't know.

protias said:

I wholeheartedly disagree with the verdict. These criminals would be back to do more harm to someone else. If someone can explain what taking out the criminal permanently is a bad thing, I'm all ears.

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I agree with you, partly. I agree that the criminals would probably still be out there doing their thing if not for this man. I agree that taking out a dangerous, violent criminal is not a bad thing. I, however, DO NOT agree with the verdict being wrong, bad or false. If you saw the video, which I'm assuming you did to make an educated opinion, the threat was gone after the initial drop of the bad guy. Once the bad guy was down, Mr. Ersland was in full control of the situation and decided that he needed to EXECUTE the incapacitated man. I would have no problem if the criminal died from the initial shot or if he bled out while the ambulance and police were on their way, but Mr. Ersland intentionally EXECUTED a man. I carry for protection and completely believe in self defense. If confronted by armed assailants, I only hope that I will be able to defend myself as well as Mr. Ersland did, but I would never condone a cold blooded EXECUTION.

lets put a spin on this. you are minding your business. all of a sudden two hooded thugs come in, screaming their intent, maybe "this is a robbery" or "if you don't do what i say, i gonna blow you away. and on top of this you do see a gun pointed at you.

point one; do you feel your life is being threaten?

you react to the threat and fire at them, one goes down and the other runs you dont ' know where to, he might just be going to use the door for position to take a shot at you, but you are in a fight for your life mode

once you find that one threat has ended the other threat is moving and reaching over to his side

point two; now did this willing participant in an armed robbery, go into it unarmed or did he not have a gun in his hand because he was carrying the bag and had his weapon in his pocket?

shoot until there is no longer a threat

i'd say bad jury pool or bad defense

I think what he did was justified. His actions after the incident to the time of the trial seemed shady. I think that messed him up more than anything.

Coming back in and shooting the guy again probably wasn't a good idea, but.... Do we really want to split hairs in cases like this? I believe that once that kid walked in with pointing a deadly weapon whatever the victim does to defend theirselves is okay. Whenever trained law inforcement officers make mistakes it is nothing but excuses like, "They were in a high stress situation", etc..... Which is okay to an extent. But why wouldn't we make the same courtesy for the average joe who is thrust into a life threatening situation? Most of us aren't self defense experts and it shouldn't be expected. This case starts out as obvious self defense; allowing prosecuters to pick it apart after that is a slippery slope. To the he is guilty crowd: What if this happens to you? Are youre actions going to be perfect? Are you sure? Will.you handle the adrenalin burst of a near death experience okay? Probably not. Think about it. Were are these juries coming from? A bunch of easily swayed pansies. All the reasonable people had jobs and got excuses to get out of jury duty. I say not guilty. My apologies for the spelling errors I typed this out on my phone. It is too much trouble to go back and correct.

Mntnhnr said:

Coming back in and shooting the guy again probably wasn't a good idea, but.... Do we really want to split hairs in cases like this? I believe that once that kid walked in with pointing a deadly weapon whatever the victim does to defend theirselves is okay. Whenever trained law inforcement officers make mistakes it is nothing but excuses like, "They were in a high stress situation", etc..... Which is okay to an extent. But why wouldn't we make the same courtesy for the average joe who is thrust into a life threatening situation? Most of us aren't self defense experts and it shouldn't be expected. This case starts out as obvious self defense; allowing prosecuters to pick it apart after that is a slippery slope. To the he is guilty crowd: What if this happens to you? Are youre actions going to be perfect? Are you sure? Will.you handle the adrenalin burst of a near death experience okay? Probably not. Think about it. Were are these juries coming from? A bunch of easily swayed pansies. All the reasonable people had jobs and got excuses to get out of jury duty. I say not guilty. My apologies for the spelling errors I typed this out on my phone. It is too much trouble to go back and correct.

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Why should we stand behind our own when they outright murder someone? Just because "LEO make mistakes"? No, the LEO are wrong when they take it too far and so are the citizens. If a person threatens you, you shoot. Shoot to kill, shoot to stop, shoot to scare. I don't care, when there's a direct threat. Any way you feel is good to eliminate that threat. BUT, once that threat has been eliminated, you need to stop. Think of it this way,

BG comes in with a gun and points it at you.
*BG is the threat.
You draw your gun and shoot the BG and he falls and is no longer armed
*BG is no longer a threat
You walk to the BG and point your gun at him
*YOU are now the threat

You are no better at this point than the BG who initially started the confrontation. You have gone from a situation in which there is no threat and you yourself have become the new threat, the aggressor, the BADGUY.

xxx.jakk.xxx said:

Why should we stand behind our own when they outright murder someone? Just because "LEO make mistakes"? No, the LEO are wrong when they take it too far and so are the citizens. If a person threatens you, you shoot. Shoot to kill, shoot to stop, shoot to scare. I don't care, when there's a direct threat. Any way you feel is good to eliminate that threat. BUT, once that threat has been eliminated, you need to stop. Think of it this way,

BG comes in with a gun and points it at you.
*BG is the threat.
You draw your gun and shoot the BG and he falls and is no longer armed
*BG is no longer a threat
You walk to the BG and point your gun at him
*YOU are now the threat


You are no better at this point than the BG who initially started the confrontation. You have gone from a situation in which there is no threat and you yourself have become the new threat, the aggressor, the BADGUY.

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A self defense situation forced upon an ordinary citizen is never going to be that cut and dry. These criminals choose to walk in with deadly force just for a few bucks how can anyone say when the threat is over? Don't get me wrong I am a little uneasy about the pharmasist repeatadly shooting the guy. But we cannot armchair that decision and still have the right to defend ourselves. This incident was brought upon an innocent hard working guy, and now he will die in prison instead of hugging grandbabies. Is that fair? In Texas they would have thrown this man a parade! The difference is a patchwork of gun laws that raelly fall upon individual prosrcuters opinions. As a nation do we really want to have our law abiding citizens worry about going to prison if they are forced to defend themselves? Once an armed assailant carries out an assault as far as I am concerned whatever happens to them after that is what they get. Myself, I would have tried to get myself and others out of the situation. Or in otherwords when he got that second gun out he should have kept going away from the assailant and called police. But I wasn't there and will not judge him for a situation he did not ask for. Also keep in mind that a big misconception is among the anti selfdefense crowd is tgat the police will protect you. And they probably would if they could but it takes time for the police to get there, a lot can and does happen in that time. They end up being more of a clean up crew. Self defense is up to you. Also google "Arizona swat kills marine". Explain to me how that was justifiex and this is not. In otherwords this armchair judgement is allowing/condoning a patchwork of laws that enable crime because honest citizens are afraid to protect themselves for fear that some small detail will equal life in prison.

It was an execution, not self defense.