Jury In Ersland Trial Tours Pharmacy Where Suspect Shot Dead

Adrianna Iwasinski, News9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The jury in the Jerome Ersland murder trial takes a field trip Monday afternoon. The jurors arrived at the Reliable Discount Pharmacy to take a tour of where the actual attempted robbery and shooting occurred. They arrived in an Oklahoma County Sheriff's bus, along with the defense team, the District Attorney's team and various police and security escorts.

Monday morning the jury heard testimony from David Jacobson, a homicide detective with the Oklahoma City Police Department. Jacobson was the detective who responded to the attempted robbery and shooting at the Reliable Discount Pharmacy a couple of hours after it occurred. Jacobson was also the detective who conducted the police interview with Jerome Ersland at the police department. The jury saw and heard the video from that taped interview.

In the taped interview, Ersland talked about the day of the robbery. Ersland also talked about past burglaries and seeing the guys enter the store with guns. He says they started shooting. "It was unbelievable," Ersland told police in the interview.

Ersland also claimed the robbers told him "I want all your *** money and all your *** drugs." He said, "They got two shots off on me, one grazed me. I then grabbed my judge."

During the interview with police, Ersland said they kept shooting, so he started shooting. He admits to shooting one of the robbers and admits he shot him five times. Ersland told the detective the robber kept trying to stand up. "I was afraid he was going to try and get the girls," Ersland told police. "I didn't want the girls to get killed. I didn't want to get shot."

Also in the police interview, the police detective originally told Ersland this would be a case of self defense, that the District Attorney would probably not file criminal charges. Ersland was told this, though, before detectives saw the surveillance video of what happened. During the interview, Ersland also asked police what he should do if the family of the boy shot tried to sue him.