Is Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland a murderer? A jury in that town thought so. Too bad there’s no jury to find Antwun Parker’s mom guilty of being an awful parent. I’m sorry; there’s just no other conclusion to reach. You may agree or disagree after you hear the details of the story.
It was May 19, 2009, when Ersland was working in the Reliable Discount Pharmacy in Oklahoma City. A video surveillance camera showed two men wearing ski masks walk into the store brandishing guns and attempting to rob the joint.
Actually, they weren’t men. Parker, only 16 at the time, was one of them. Oklahoma City police have identified the other as Jeventia Ingram, who was only 14 at the time.
Ersland, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and, unfortunately for Parker, a darned good shot, retrieved a handgun and fired, hitting Parker in the head. He fell to the floor; his poltroon-like crime partner fled the scene.
The video camera then showed Ersland walking to the rear of the pharmacy, where he got a second handgun. He returned and fired five more shots into the prone Parker, who died from his wounds.
Oklahoma City prosecutors felt the five extra shots went well over the line that separates legitimate self-defense from murder, and a jury agreed. Still, Ersland has supporters who believe he’s a hero, not a murderer.
Cleta Jennings, Parker’s mother, isn’t among that number, but she has issues of her own. In what might be described as one of the most tragic and pathetic cases of denial ever to go down on record, Jennings recently had this to say about her son, caught dead – no pun intended – to rights trying to rob a place of business at gunpoint.
“A coward is someone who will kill someone when they’re down. That’s not a hero. The real hero here is Antwun.”
With one ill-advised, thoughtless statement, Jennings has highlighted the intensity of what have been called America’s “culture wars.” There are indeed some places in the nation where a gun-toting, store-robbing hoodlum is indeed regarded as a hero.
There are indeed some people who will see said hoodlum as such. We already have gangsta rap songs that extol the virtues of killing police officers.
The “Stop Snitching” craze — brought to us courtesy of the gangsta rap subculture — is now so prevalent that police in some cities are hard-pressed to solve homicides.
(Remember the incident several years ago when rapper Busta Rhymes’ bodyguard was killed in broad daylight during a video shoot? Hundreds of witnesses, and none — including Rhymes — willing to talk to police.)
So perhaps if someone has that worldview Parker is a hero. At this point I should point out that Jennings is black and Ersland is white. I don’t know if Jennings or her son bought into the rap culture that makes criminals the heroes and law-abiding citizens the villains, but the mom should ponder this:
In such an incident, where a white man is accused of murdering a black youth, types like the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would have pounced all over the controversy. They’d have been in Oklahoma City almost as fast as Ersland whipped out that pistol he used to shoot Parker.
A quick Google search reveals that neither of the good revvums has weighed in on the Ersland-Parker matter. They have wisely decided to steer clear. Parker may not have been a hard-core thug. He may have been, as his family claims, a basically good boy who loved basketball and then committed one bad, stupid act that ended tragically for him.
But he’s no hero, Ms. Jennings. Please return to reality.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
