Oklahoma pharmacist sentenced to life for killing would-be robber

An Oklahoma pharmacist has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder in the shooting death of a teenager who tried to rob the south Oklahoma City pharmacy where he worked.

Fifty-nine-year-old Jerome Ersland was sentenced Monday after Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott rejected a defense motion to suspend the sentence.

Ersland had no reaction and said nothing as the sentence was handed down. As he left the courtroom, he responded to a reporter's shouted question by calling the sentence "an injustice of a monumental proportion."

A jury convicted Ersland and recommended the life with the possibility of parole sentence for the May 2009 shooting of 16-year-old Antwun Parker. Defense attorney Irven Box said the conviction and sentence will be appealed.

Confronted by two holdup men, Ersland pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore's security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into Parker as he lay on the floor unconscious.

At the trial, prosecutors argued that Ersland crossed into the wrong when he shot the unarmed and unconscious Parker five more times.

Ersland contended that he was defending himself and two co-workers from a robber who still posed a threat. (Continued in source)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43710936/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?gt1=43001

Ha! Only in USA. 

Owned.

well shooting him those additional times is blatantly criminal, not self defense

The first headshot is gtg.......the mag dump afterwards....ngtg

He' shot dude more after he already on the floor dying. Can't do that, get in cell.

Well those additional five bullets were beyond self-defense so I suppose that he should go in jail.

I may be alone in my stance, but while I feel what he did was a bit excessive, I don't find him necessarily in the wrong. The would-be robber threatened his life, and he took steps to ensure that it wouldn't happen again. Suppose he hadn't killed him, and the little monster had somehow survived the head shot. What's to stop him from doing his jail time, getting out, and going back and killing the guy that shot him in an act of revenge? The Romans didn't destroy Carthage after the first Punic War, and so they wound up having to fight them again in the second Punic War. The man was just doing his job, trying to earn an honest living, and this little punk came into his store and shoved a gun in his face. When you do something like that, your death is nobody's fault but your own.

Five extra times? Ehh...if he wasn't scared outta his mind, then he surely knew what he was doing there, and I can't feel too sympathetic for him. On the other hand though, I can't say I fell any negativity towards him either.

There's no way that sentence is gonna uphold.