This Is The Sort of Story That Makes My Blood Boil

This Is The Sort of Story That Makes My Blood Boil

The Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog frequently runs news stories like this one, involving armed robbers who get shot to death by their victims. And not too surprisingly, the robbers are sometimes black, the victims white. What makes my blood boil is when a person who is defending himself and his fellow employees from a highly organized, planned violent armed robbery gets called a racist for doing so. First, the robbery itself, from the May 22, 2009 Oklahoma City Oklahoman:

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.”
...

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.

This was not a misunderstanding. Gee, what were they planning to do? The ski masks alone would give you a clue.

This was not an unlawful overreaction, like the Korean shopkeeper in Los Angeles some years ago who shot to death a black teenager who shoplifted something from the store. This was a carefully planned robbery by a group of heavily armed teenaged criminals.

And the response of the community?

"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.

That makes my blood boil. Does anyone seriously think that a group of similarly determined white robbers would not have received the same response? I keep hoping that American electing a black man to the highest office in the land would stop this lame attempt at turning every criminal into a victim of racism. But apparently not.

The race card has been played so many times where it simply does not apply that I no longer pay any attention to it. And there are probably times when race really is an issue. But this is the type of behavior by some members of the black community that makes me just yawn now when I hear the accusation.

UPDATE: From the May 27, 2009 Oklahoma City Oklahoman:

The charge alleges Ersland shot Antwun Parker, 16, while he was incapacitated and lying on his back. Ersland’s account of the incident doesn’t match the video or the evidence collected at the scene, according to the affidavit written by Oklahoma City Police Detective David Jacobson.

Parker was shot once in the head and five times in the stomach area. The autopsy found Parker was still alive after the head shot and died from the stomach wounds.

The surveillance video does seem to confirm that while the first shot was in self-defense, subsequent shots were not even close to being in self-defense.