Ah, I didn’t know that.
Here is some background on how the jury reached their decision.
He is a fake war “hero”.
“Hours after the robbery, Ersland told police he suffers PTSD “from being in the Gulf War,” a detective reported.
“He said, ‘I killed a lot of people there, but I had to do it. I dream about it every night.’ Ersland said he got hurt there (Gulf War) and that was why he was wearing the medical back and front brace,” the detective reported.
The detective quoted Ersland as saying, “So, I have killed a number of people with a .50-caliber” and “I was a platoon leader from Fort Bragg.” The detective reported Ersland said he was in the Army until he got hurt and then the Air Force let him join because there was a high demand for pharmacists.
Ersland left the Army in February 1989, well before the Gulf War, records show. His first assignment after joining the Air Force was the Altus Air Force Base hospital.”
“Instead, Jerome Jay Ers-land spent the war in 1991 as the pharmacy chief at the military hospital at Altus Air Force Base in southwestern Oklahoma, records show.”
ALMOST EVERYTHING THE GUY SAYS BELOW ARE LIES. The robbers had one gun and never fired a shot, he was never in the war, etc, etc.
Here are some of his earlier claims, people forget that he claimed to have been wounded in a desperate shootout and was wearing a bandage over the wound until the police made clear that he was the only one that had fired a gun. When you watch the video you realize that the guy is totally fantasizing and making it up up and lying.
Throw these claims in with his phony war hero stuff and you have a real nutcase.
>The robbers began shooting at him, with one bullet grazing him on the arm, he said he heard another round whiz past his ear.
Ersland recalled: “All of a sudden, they started shooting. 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 grabbed the semi-automatic Kel-Tec .380 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.”
Ersland also kept a much larger pistol in a nearby drawer, which he was able to retrieve, a Taurus Judge revolver. At that point, the second robber took off. However, the other robber was now getting up off of the floor, despite the head wound.
Ersland emptied his clip into the chest of the wounded robber, who turned out to be 16-year-old Antwun Parker.
“I went after the other guy, but he was real fast and I’m crippled,” said Ersland. Once outside, he saw a third black male sitting in a car with what appeared to be a shotgun.
Ersland said: “I pulled out my ‘Judge’ and pointed it right between his eyes and he floored it.”
>””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.
Phony war hero, but not a murderer (as the term was intended). Bear in mind that some here consider self defense murder, even here on this conservative site.