The issue, as it relates to Ersland’s case, is that it is possible. No one can say that it is completely impossible. It is not completely impossible that Parker was stirring on the floor. It is not completely impossible that he regained consciousness. And it is extremely possible that he could have had a gun on him. It’s been determined that he didn’t. How could Ersland know. Tactically, he must assume that he does.
I thnk that the naysayers feel that if Cosmosdan’s story is impossible then Ersland’s needing to further stop Parker is just as impossible.
We don’t know that the kid was unconscious. That’s the issue. Ersland said he was trying to get up. You might believe otherwise but you don’t have sufficient
evidence to know. In accusations of murder those details are pretty important. You mentioned the ME. The ME only said the kid was alive after the first shot and said nothing about the kid being unconscious. That’s also significant and an error on your part.
You’re wrong again. I’m not asking anyone to assume my story is true. I told it to make one simple point that is relevant and true whether my story is true or not. I honestly don’t give a rats ass who believes it’s. What I find really annoying is folks dissing it with bullshit they mistakenly call critical thinking. Doubt or disbelieve. I don’t care. Just don’t spew crap and call it logic to justify your disbelief.
I have a friend who was held up in gas station. He shot the robber but when he pumped five bullets into the robbers body, they ricocheted off the concrete floor and killed two passerbys. This shows that the pharmacist was grossly irresponsible even if he’s found not-guilty of murder.
I didn’t tell this story earlier, because it isn’t true I couldn’t figure out how it was relevant to the discussion. Apparently that doesn’t matter though. People are killed by ricochets all the time. That’s what matters.
I can make up some more stories if you like, now that I know that it’s okay and that they reinforce my argument.
I thought you were done with this thread, cosmosdan. Didn’t you say:
?
Even if all you meant was you were done with the hijack, here you are, bringing it up and defending your unverifiable story again (#633). And again (#634). And again (#642).
Speaking of not believing people, I don’t believe a single one of the anti-shopkeeper crowd would behave as their rhetoric suggests they would.
If you are the victim of a home invasion and armed robbers have a gun to your daughter’s head, and you are lucky enough to shoot first, you finish them off. You don’t wait to see if they will open their eyes and murder your family so you can properly retaliate. If you see any sign that they are still a threat, you end it. Any sign of movement, you end it. You don’t let your family be murdered to protect home invaders.
Hmm. I’m guessing that the vast majority of the “anti-shopkeeper” people would say that they might fire until their gun was empty, but they wouldn’t reload and shoot an robber lying on the floor at point blank range.
The forum for polls is, I believe, IMHO. But of course you can’t trust anyone to tell the truth, so I’m not sure there’s any point in asking people about it.
How do you know that to be true? The only option is not to finish him. The shopkeeper might have just watched him die without empying a gun into him. He was shot in the head .
No one in this thread has been “anti-shopkeeper”. Many, hell MOST of us have just been “anti-pump-5-more-shots-into-the-kid-who’s-already-shot-in-the-head-and-incapacitated-and-unarmed” is all.
That is being anti-shopkeeper, because you have provided exactly zero reason why the shopkeeper was not 100% justified in assuming all the robbers were armed. The fact that you keep bringing that point up shows your strange bias against the shopkeeper.
Again, if you were in a similar situation I guarantee you would assume the entire team of home invaders was armed. You aren’t going to watch your daughter get murdered because you made some bizarre guess about which of the intruders brought a gun.
Uh, we have brought this up: the law doesn’t allow you to shoot people based on assumptions.
There was no need to guess. Mr. Parker did not have a gun in either of his hands when Mr. Ersland pumped 5 bullets into him at point blank range. By definition, someone is only armed if they have a weapon equipped. Mr. Parker was not armed.
The shopkeeper had every reason to believe all of the intruders had guns, since they burst into the store with ski masks and indeed aimed a gun at him.
The ME did not say that the intruder could not have regained consciousness (actually I don’t even see where the ME said he was unconscious) and shot the shopkeeper and the women in the store.
The shopkeeper claims the intruder moved.
All within 30 seconds.
These are the simple facts. You can argue that people ought to let their families be murdered in order to protect home invaders, but I guarantee you would not do so yourself.
Home invaders try to murder your family, you get lucky enough to stop them, you end it. If you see them move, you have to finish them off. You don’t let your family be murdered for the sake of the home invaders themselves.
Actually, I get from the people posting here that they are such cool headed individuals with such steely nerves after having faced many similar life and death situations that they can make fully rational decisions in very short time spans, so yes, being such He-Men, they can afford to be merciful.
I got the same thing. That and the fact that they would employ every move that they have ever seen on TV from covering a downed intruder to tying them up with whatever was availabe.
“tactically assuming he does” implies a rational thought process.
this would take the wind out of hte sails of a lot of people that are saying he acted in the heat of the moment.
If you are thinking “tactically” there are a lot of options open to you other than pumping five rounds into somebody that was TRYING to get up.
And anyway - if Ersland was thinking rationally at all - why did he even go back to put himself into harms way? Why not just let the police handle it. He acted like judge, jury and executioner with the additional shots.
No, they didn’t. Watch the video. Mr. Parker was trying to put his mask on, never succeeding in doing so before he was shot in the head. Mr. Parker did not have a gun, therefore he could not have aimed a gun at anyone. Mr. Ersland was well within his rights to shoot at the 2 of them initially, but after seeing that the downed Mr. Parker had empty hands, that “belief” cannot be justified. (Start the betting pool on the argument-to-come that Mr. Ersland did not see Mr. Parker’s hands… even tho he stepped over him and later approached within 2 feet to deliver the killing shots.)
Many of the original news stories have been taken down and replaced with the AP story. In the AP story, the prosecuter is quoted as saying Mr. Parker was unconscious. I seem to remember the ME saying it in one of the NewsOK stories, but can’t find it now. I may have mis-spoken in a previous post. Sorry.
The ME also does not say that the intruder could not have turned into a giant babyeating squid, or that he could not have been a trumpet player, or any thousand other things.
Mr. Ersland also claims that the robbers shot his watch off and that they both had guns blazing at him from 2 sides. THAT IS FALSE. Watch the video. The gunman never fired a shot.
Mr. Ersland is not a credible witness, and the opinion of his ex-wives, his son, and mental health experts who have seen him is that he is (at the very least) borderline sociopathic. One ex-wife claims he abused the very drugs he was selling.
You can’t even get this right. The robbers entered the store at approximately 15:40:33.648 (that’s 3:40pm and 33.6481 seconds). At 15:40:51.700 Mr. Ersland exits the store to chase after the fleeing robber. At 15:41:14.669 Mr. Ersland re-enters the store. At 15:41:32.009 he shoots Mr. Parker again. At 15:41:34.009 Mr. Ersland turns away from Mr. Parker, having killed him. That’s over a minute, twice as long as you thought even tho all you had to do was look at the clock in the video.
You didn’t get any of the facts right, and no one has argued that gun-toting robbers should be allowed to shoot people.
Holy crap, you even got this wrong. It wasn’t a home invasion, it was a drug store robbery. Haven’t you been paying attention at all? :smack:
It’s entirely about cause and effect. You say he could have dropped his gun when he was shot. As in he dropped his gun (the effect) because he was shot (the cause). Why did being shot being shot cause him to drop the gun? Was he shot in the hand? There’s no reflex reaction to being shot that causes you to loosen your grip.
If your story is to be believed, the most probable situation involves a man or teen armed with a fully automatic weapon heading towards possible victims. If the ME in this pharmacy case is to be believed, the most probable situation involves an unarmed, unconscious, motionless 16 year old.
Yes, we can start tweaking and adjusting those two situations with increasingly unlikely possibilities until your story becomes applicable to the actual situation, but that’s a long way to go.
I’m not going to argue semantics. If you use a different definition for the word skepticism than I do, then let me rephrase that: When I read or hear a rather fantastic story from a source I don’t know to be reliable, my default response is doubt. In this case, that doubt isn’t based on the details that were left out, it’s based on the details that were included.
I’m not going to reply to jimpatro anymore. I’m beginning to wonder if even he believes what he’s saying.
If two intruders with ski masks burst into your room and one of them points a gun at you, it is reasonable to assume and act as though both have guns.
Not only is it reasonable, if there are people around you need to protect it would be improper not to make such an assumption.
If it was your own or your family’s lives in danger of ending, you would make such an assumption too.
I hadn’t read any version of the story that mentioned the ME saying that, thank you for finding a cite.
Given the mental state the shopkeeper was likely in right after robbers burst into his store and aimed a gun at him, it wouldn’t have taken much to consider the downed intruder a threat.
This is why early on in the thread I said it would come down to the mental state of the shopkeeper. He didn’t know what we know after the fact.
When I watched it I didn’t think I needed more than a rough estimate of the time. I don’t think it changes anything.
I only mention it because it seems you are completely unable to relate to people who work in drug stores, and how they might react when intruders burst in and aim a gun at them.
So if you were the victim of a home invasion, intruders in ski masks aim a gun at your daughter, and you shoot them even after they are down, you are justified.
Because you aren’t a robot. When criminals in ski masks try to murder you and your family, your mind goes into a different mode, and you end the threat.
But that’s different. Because it’s a home. Not a store. Totally different. Why?
Not that I’m an expert on the various expressions of Castle Doctrine, but I think the distinction is that one’s home is considered to be one’s ultimate refuge from harm, the one place where it has been deemed reasonable to be laxer and allow more leeway to self-defense claims. If even your home isn’t safe, where can you run to ? Hence the provision that one’s home is the one place where the “duty to retreat” can’t apply.
By contrast, one’s workplace isn’t one’s ultimate refuge from harm, nor can it be - your coworkers are strangers, the customers also. I would also suggest that, in my mind at least, “defending one’s home and family” doesn’t carry the same emotional weight as “defending one’s workplace and coworkers”.
I don’t agree on this. You wanted a logical reason why he might have dropped his gun because you couldn’t think of any. Being shot is certainly a logical reason. Falling downstairs doesn’t necessarily result in breaking an arm but explaining a broken arm with “I fell downstairs” is certainly plausible and reasonable. He dropped his weapon when he was shot is also a perfectly reasonable statement that doesn’t stretch the imagination.
Aside from that since you have provided the cite I requested about the ME I’m willing to concede the point about Ersland. The previous links I read only stated that the ME said the wounded robber was alive at the time of the second shooting After reading your cite I’d agree with you that is strong clear evidence providing the paper got it right. That tips the scales for me. Whether he’ll actually be convicted remains a question.