Posted on 06/12/2009 11:54:08 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
The pharmacist has been caught in a half-dozen lies so far. How many will it take before Red questions if he might be lying about what happened, too.
Red makes a big deal that the video tape does not show the perp, so anything the pharmacist says could be true. However, the video tape also shows him walking calmly past where the perp fell, TURNING HIS BACK ON THE PERP, rummaging around in a drawer to find a second gun, walking calmly back to where the perp fell, slowly raising his gun and pumping 5 shots into whoever was there. Sure doesn’t look like he was scared for his life.
I will tend to go with whatever the jury says on this one. However, I doubt that he will be given a medal and a parade, let alone turned loose. The charges may be reduced, but I am betting he will spend at least a year and a day in jail.
More winners!
So now we learn that he is a phony war vet claiming to have been wounded in combat. In this robbery he also claimed to be wounded and even put a fake bandage on himself as he was relating this heroic account below, which if you watch the video you realize is totally a lie.
>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.”
It doesn't matter what it looks like, or even if he felt any fear by the time he shot the perp five times. The fact is that he had no motive to kill anyone. He was attacked, told he was going to be killed, and shot at. It is absolutely presumable that at some point, he feared for his life. Whether that put him into a cold rage, a psychotic break, or made him laugh out loud while eating potato chips while he shot the perp dead, he is innocent. His state of mind was completely involuntary - it was deliberately created by the attackers in order to terrify him into losing all control over his behavior, and therefore being unable to resist them.
Well, they managed to get him to lose control over his behavior, but the rest didn't work out the way they planned. No motive, temporary insanity deliberately induced by perps, not guilty.
(And if his military record or previous behavior shows mental instability, all it proves is that he was more likely to lose his mind under a death threat, making him all the more innocent of any crime.)
You know that the robber never fired a shot right? The fake bandage and the bullet wound were props.
This guy has been pawning himself off as a war hero that earned a Purple Heart, I wonder if someone is looking into federal charges?
You know there is a difference between faking a wound and being shot at? I heard he was shot at. But let's say you're right - let's say he wasn't shot at. Let's say "all" the perps did was stick a gun in his face (even if we throw out his statement that they told him they were going to kill him). What's left? A direct threat on his life, made specifically to give the impression he could be killed.
He still has no motive other than the mental imbalance caused by that threat. And that fake wound is further evidence of mental imbalance. And "pawning himself off as a war hero that earned a Purple Heart" is further evidence of mental imbalance.
And as for federal charges, yeah, maybe they could add federal charges AGAINST THE PERPS.
But the pharmacist is innocent of homicide, or of manslaughter. There is NO WAY to prove that the actions of the perps didn't derange his mind to the point where they fully account for the shooting. And THAT inability to EVER know for sure, is the danger of sticking a gun in someone's face while committing a crime.
Of course you heard he was shot at, just read his incredible tale that I posted in post 43, and sporting a fake bandage over a fake wound fits his Walter Mitty dreams, he even describes himself as thrown against the wall.
Read the account he gives in post 43 and then look at this video.
Read my post 46. You're proving my point. The more imbalanced he was before the threat to his life, the more reasonable it is to presme that the threat rendered him mentally deranged. He still had no motive, other than response to the threat, which was designed to unhinge him. Well, it did. And there is no way to prove that the threat alone wasn't enough to fully account for the derangement that enacted the shooting.
The DA had to file murder charges and we will just have to see what the nutcase uses for a defense.
Or what the justly frightened, sane and perfectly-harmless-and-rational-when-not-being-insanely-threatened, law-abiding pharmacist uses for a defense.
Oh and one more thing - I've been arguing a worst-case scenario. What was not shown on the video is if the perp made any threatening moves (even though he was supposedly unconscious). Also, there are far more mild and reasonable interpretations of his previous behavior and military claims than the ones you've put forth.
Just sayin.
Sorry, missed that part of your post. We disagree again, the DA "had to" do no such thing. For the reasons I've stated, he should have filed involuntary manslaughter charges at the most, plus a psych review. The DA is pandering to the anti-gun crowd by fronting arguments for the criminal, and none whatever for the victim.
There cannot be any question that the Pharmacist is a nutcase.
I question it, and until I see proof of it, I deny it. Why not call the perps nutcases? They came in waving guns, threatening lives - but the pharmacist is the nutcase? Interesting choice of labels for the parties involved.
Your position is clear, so is mine. Thanks for sharing.
The proof of it is a guy claiming to be a disabled, decorated war hero with a Purple Heart that was never wounded and never in a war, the man living that kind of lie is a nutcase, then read his account in post 43 where he is wounded again in this shoot out that never happened, he is dodging bullets and bandaging his wounded arm and selling that story to the public when we find out that the robber never even fired his pistol.
Without even getting into what he did that got him charged with murder we already know that this guy is not a solid citizen, something is wrong with this man.
And you ask me for proof that people are defending the armed perps????
Your post is Exhibit A.
"The proof of it is a guy claiming to be a disabled, decorated war hero with a Purple Heart that was never wounded and never in a war, the man living that kind of lie is a nutcase, then read his account in post 43 where he is wounded again in this shoot out that never happened, he is dodging bullets and bandaging his wounded arm and selling that story to the public when we find out that the robber never even fired his pistol.
Without even getting into what he did that got him charged with murder we already know that this guy is not a solid citizen, something is wrong with this man."
What you say about his fantasies of being wounded may well turn out to be true. But in fact, it is not a crime to have self-aggrandizing fantasies, nor to be neurotic or even psychotic as long as you are not a threat to yourself or others. And there is no indication that he was a threat to anyone. At most, he was just mentally unbalanced to the level where he needed to make up stories about being wounded and/or heroic.
But on the other hand, if a person decides to take a gun and threaten someone's life to commit a crime, the law cannot insist that the victim be free of mental imbalances. Criminally threaten someone's life, and you take the risk that you will make them snap. And if they do, no matter how screwed up they were before they were threatened, if they were legally screwed up (so to speak) you cannot hold their snapping against them - you MUST hold it against the perps. Otherwise there can be no justice, ever.
As well, what about the aggravated mental harm caused to the pharmacist by being forced to mentally break to the point of killing someone? What about the tremendous psychological stress and guilt that comes from that raped act? Who's looking out for him?
Instead, people cry about the dead perp, and then - while he's in the middle of trying to cope with being mentally raped to the point of killing - look at the pharmacist as a criminal and mock him with derision and scorn and demand he justify killing someone who threatened him with death, instead of acknowledging him as the massive victim he is!
It's a sickening perversion of justice - and it would NEVER happen to a cop. All the cop would have to say is that he "feared for his life" in ANY way whatsoever (even mistakenly, as a result of psychological trauma from the threat), and he'd never even be charged. All I'm arguing for is the same set of criteria for the pharmacist.
Lying to the police and claiming a fake wound is probably a crime, if he has been wearing a Purple Heart or war ribbons or collecting disability for the fake war wounds all that is a crime.
Fake war vet just happens to be among the lowest scum here at FR.
As usual, you are spot on.
Cops would never have this level of scrutiny fo rthe same actions, and they are people who are accustomed to this kind of stress, where this poor guy was not.
Wow, I have a problem with the first sentence of the article. “Pharmacy murder suspect....”. How about we change that to HERO PHARMACIST WHO SAVED LIVES WHILE DEFENDING WOMEN FROM THUG ROBBERS WITH GUNS......
This man is getting a raw deal. What is WRONG with people? The man was faced with armed robbers! They all deserved to die for being ARMED ROBBERS. He only shot one of them, he is only guilty of not shooting them all. He should get the key to the city and a hero award. But no, we live in libtardia now and everything is bass ackwards. Give me my country back.
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