Posted on 02/03/2005 6:00:06 PM PST by Gondring
As an actress, Nicole duFresne had roles in dozens of way-off-Broadway productions.
But it was an unfortunate real-life line witnesses say duFresne uttered before her slaying — "What are you going to do, shoot us?" — that has brought her to the public's attention.
Authorities have refused to speculate whether the 28-year-old actress and playwright's defiant stand against a bandit prompted him to shoot her to death last week on a New York City street.
"Regardless of what the victim said or did not say, the person responsible for her death is the one who pulled the trigger," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said earlier this week.
Safety advocates, however, have cited the case as a lesson in how not to respond to a holdup.
On Wednesday, the Washington-based National Crime Prevention Council responded to widespread reports about duFresne's last words by circulating a list of tips on how to survive a mugging.
"It demonstrates that confronting an attacker is probably the worst thing you can do," said council spokesman Todd Post.
DuFresne, a Minnesota transplant who had lived in Seattle before coming to New York, listed "stage combat" as one of her skills on her Internet resume. She was leaving a bar with her fiancé and another couple at about 3 a.m. Jan. 27 when they were accosted by a group of youths who had already tried to rob another person earlier in the evening.
Witnesses told police that when the group demanded the other woman's purse, duFresne responded with: "What are you going to do, shoot us?" Police said she also might have gotten into a brief shoving match with the shooter before he fired a bullet into her chest.
Police arrested the alleged triggerman, Rudy Fleming, 19, and two teenage girls they say took a cell phone and credit cards and helped hide the murder weapon. All three have been charged with murder and robbery.
On its tip sheet, the crime prevention council advises potential victims to stay cool and comply with robbers. At the same time, people should take mental notes on what the assailant looks like so they can provide a detailed description to police, the sheet says.
A robbery "is more about power than anything," said Alfonso E. Lenhardt, president of the nonprofit council, known for its McGruff the Crime Dog mascot.
"It's a tragedy, but in this case it sounds like (the suspect) felt he wasn't getting the respect he was due," Lenhardt said. "When a gun is in the hands of a desperate person with low self-esteem, they're going to react that way."
The others charged in the killing are Ashley Evans, 18, and Tatianna McDonald, 14. Two young men were charged in the earlier robbery attempt, while two other youths are considered by police to be witnesses.
A graduate of Emerson College in Boston, duFresne was a founding member of the Present Tense Theater Project and acted with the LAByrinth Theater Co., according to her online resume. She wrote a play called "Burning Cage" with Mary Jane Gibson, the woman with her and her fiancé at the time of the shooting.
"Burning Cage," about two women in an asylum who are targeted for brainwashing experiments with LSD, toured in 2002 at fringe theater festivals in Canada and the United States.
DuFresne's other play, "Matter," is about an amnesiac whose apartment is taken over by a violent and seductive intruder. It was performed in Brooklyn in 2003.
I have.
There are ways of sneaking around your mother and your father.
It was in the NY Post the day after the shooting, and I saw an eyewitness interview on WNYW FOX-5 NY on their morning news program Good Day New York.
Actions have consequences. If she is a 'good' person she'll now learn her lesson.
There it is.
I had an encounter with meth heads in Tompkins Square Park that leads me to believe the rumor about it being a club drug is absolutely true.
I believe the 14 year-old was charged as an accomplice because she helped the gunman hide the murder weapon.
I don't give a sh!t if she'd 14, either -- let her rot in prison. In fact, I can't think of a better deterrent to crime in New York City than to allow her out of prison once a year -- fully shackled and in her prison uniform -- to give speeches to high school students just so they can see what the consequences of criminal actions could be.
If she would agree to do that, then I would agree to reduce her sentence, from 25-to-life . . . to 25 years.
Up until the instant the girl was shot, figure each of the people involved had two or three different choices they could have made. Up until they time there were options. The girl and the shooter both made the wrong choices. My point was, they were "programmed" to make those choices under those circumstances.
Who knows? You gotta remember that this occurred outside a bar in the East Village at 3:00 AM. The first eyewitness accounts were probably given by people who were drunk, stoned, or both.
They/we haven't seen the worst of it yet. Like crack, it's profitable. So there'll be consolidation of distribution, manufacture, etc. The way these people consolidate is to kill off the competition.
Of course. I wasn't hanging around with bad people at 3 in the morning. Nor was I disobeying my parents authority by sneaking around at that hour of the night.
Exactly
Not this kind of crime. This is a thug killer. That's what the victim missed also. Note that the killer didn't even care to consider what he was about to do when the victim posed the question. He just attacked and killed. THat's what's in their head, not consequences.
Harsher penalties just exile the creeps to where they can do no more harm.
I don't think people are making enough noise about crystal meth. I agree we haven't seen the worst of it yet.
You seem obsessed with race.
So how are black criminals more of an issue than others, and what do you expect the Republicans to do with those black people?
It's an issue in rural areas with high unemployment.
It demonstrates the false sense of security one feels when living in a no-gun state.
Apparently, the criminals don't obey laws - therefore, the chances of them having guns is quite high.
Duh.
As if there were no black Republicans.
or white criminals
Well you yell at the gunman and I'll keep quite. Let's see who lives.
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