Oklahoma City Robbery

The case of Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland is an issue that has galvanized many Oklahomans to his support and appalled many people in Oklahoma and elsewhere. Ersland's store, the Reliable Discount Pharmacy, was visited in 2009 by two masked robbers, both apparently armed. The gunmen told two of Ersland's female employees to give them money and drugs, but the two women ran to the back of the store. Ersland than produced his own gun and shot one of the robbers, 16-year-old Antwun Parker, in the head; he then chased the other robber out of his store.

When he returned to store, he took another gun and shot Parker five more times. The surveillance camera got everything on tape . . . except Parker's position on the floor at the time Ersland shot him five more times.

A jury found Ersland guilty of murder last week. Oklahomans have circulated a petition demanding his release from prison, claiming that he was acting in self-defense, and suggesting a change to the laws to prevent anyone in Ersland's situation from going to jail. But those who support the jury's verdict insist that Ersland should be sentenced to life as the jury recommended. And, of course, there's a racial element: The robbers were black. Ersland is white.

Okay, I have to weigh in on this. And my opinion likely won't please anyone. Ersland was justified in shooting Parker in self-defense. But when he shot him five more times, the first bullet having already incapacitated Parker, then it became murder. He should have disarmed Parker have called 911 once Parker - whose head wound rendered him nonthreatening to anyone - was on the floor. Literally speaking, no jury would have convicted Ersland if he had stopped after one shot.

And even though race is something that can't be avoided in this case - whether or not it was about race, the question still has to be asked - MSNBC sidestepped the issue in its report on the story yesterday afternoon.