Posted on 05/22/2009 1:48:45 PM PDT 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.”
I know a guy who made a P-32 pocket holster from a plastic milk jug and duct tape! He said “it cuts down on pocket lint in the barrel.”
Personally, I resized my simple leather pocket holster from P-32 to (the just slightly larger) P3AT by soaking it in cold water for an hour and jamming the gun in, then setting both in the sun for a few hours.
Worked like a charm.
Should have had a pair of .410s followed by three .45s loaded. That way he could have dumped the shot loads into the reviving punk -- and then have taken out the others...
This is exactly what leaders of Somali pirates said after three of them were killed by SEALs and their hostage saved:
"We are determined to continue our business regardless of the recent killings and arrests."
Also a similar incident happened after a criminal killed four police officers in Oakland and then was killed himself. A small crowd gathered in support of the dead criminal, also claiming that "he never hurt anyone" and "he was misunderstood." I guess wallowing in crime is contagious.
How depressingly predictable.
He did have enough to take out the kid, but it is a shame he gets called names by the local fools who don’t know their a$$ from their elbows!
If the druggist only had shot loads (bad tactics) in the Judge, he should at least have "marked" the vehicle with a couple of rounds -- even though he knew they would not penetrate effectively.
That way, the cops could have been "BOLO" for a specially-marked vehicle (pinged paint and starred windshield) -- and they would have had no problem tying that other punk to the robbery.
You did read that the perp got up after getting shot in the head. If the pharmacist had a .45 one shot to the head would have been enough.
We can keep trying to tell ourselves this but whenever we witness community outrage over thugs getting killed while committing crimes, the outraged community overwhelmingly tends to be black.
Some meth-addled white kid gets killed holding up a pharmacy (it does occasionally happen) and you'd most likely see members of his family saying, "Good riddance. We knew something like this was bound to happen eventually. We feel terrible for the pharmacist. We're sorry for the pain our boy caused."
That's the difference.
One of his most prized possessions was the picture of the mayor giving him a key to the city for his actions. Today Little Norm would be facing prison time at the very least.
Do you have this?
I have lasers on both of my carry guns.
http://www.crimsontrace.com/Home/Products/KelTec/LG430/tabid/299/Default.aspx
No brains is now tacky?
He had a 45/410 “Judge” under the counter.
Not at the ready in his pocket.
That’s the tradeoff.
Nice little pocket gun. I’m going to have to get me one (or maybe a Ruger LCP).
The Judge passed down a ruling, and He said the kid was guilty.
Wherever people view themselves with a group identity, this kind of thing will happen in adverse interaction to those outside the group.
Irish vs. Brits. Indians vs. Pakistanis. Tamils vs. Sri Lankans. Powerlifters vs. bodybuilders. Chevy vs. Ford.
Some situations will be worse than others but if one group identifies itself as a victim and has parasites feeding off the sentiment, the problem gets compounded a few hundredfold. And that is what we are seeing here.
It's a very human failing.
That isn’t how the post comes across.
yes he was but he was also Amish.......
Thanks for posting that youtube link. That’s an impressive bullet dispenser. I might have to consider one of those.
I couple days ago I was talking with a fellow retiree at the gym an told him about another retiree's daughter who was shot at on Detroit's east side 2 years ago around midnight while coming home from her afternoon shift as a nurse.
2 Amish dudes walked up to her car while she was at the stop light and pulled a gun on her. She then sped off but not before one of the Amish dudes shot at her which missed and the slug embedded on the drivers side of the car.
She then stopped at an all night party store (7-11) and called the cops. they told her to come in the next morning and file a report............
The retired teacher I related this incident to then informed me that his brother was a cop on Detroit's east side and that there was active gang activity going on at that time where the targets were white women for either being shot or raped or both.
What is scary is that there is so much crime going on in Detroit that is not being reported. Detroit is crime central in the U.S. but we're not even getting half of the reports.........
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