Acting! She fooled him....she was a Master Thespian!
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.
Acting! She fooled him....she was a Master Thespian!
In it. When passes by the draft
Will pulling up scarf and hood make warm
The neck that chill seeks out?
Some chills too deep and sharp they are
And only a fierce shiver and quick oath
Will still the callous dagger
That cold and heartless night alone.
Your arguements are specious so quit
calling the other arguements "left wing."
Harsh penalties do one thing for certain:
they keep the convicted off the streets.
You're completely missing the point. The law of diminishing returns applies. These killers are already operating under severe penalties. They don't care how much more punishment is added to the penalty. They don't care one little bit what the damn penalties are! Most of them aren't to concerned when they destroy their own selves with hard drugs. If you think they do, then you're only being misled by the BS that flows after they're caught.
Nobody ever "asks" for it, they simply get what life hands to them. Fortunately here in Michigan we are afforded the luxury of carrying the means to protect ourselves against such an incident. However, given her history, it is unlikely she would have taken the steps to protect herself via a concealed firearm........ so sad...
Really?
I suspect we have quite a few..lol.
Some folks are here 24/7.
I am thirty-ish...yeah that's it thirty-ish ;-) I understand what you are trying to say, but these days teens are committing big time crimes and 'youthful ignorance' isn't much of an excuse anymore.
Or maybe Singapore is so safe because it's mostly full of Singaporeans.
1 good kid hanging out with a bad group makes 1 bad kid.
Those must be the ones who don't make any sense...
If I were her father, the offal that murdered her would not live to stand trial. The wheels of justice turn far too slowly in our "enlightened" society.
I gave you allot of facts.
I'm not saying you are a liberal. I'm just saying that the mentality that "People are gonna do it anyway" is a liberal arguement.
The Harsher the Penalty the less likely one is to commit a crime.
The less HARSH the Penalty the more people are going to be to commit a crime.
I told you how drunk driving went down once the penalty got much stronger.
I told you how abortions went up when it was legalized, (no penalty)
I told you about crime in Switzerland and Singapore.
If you were smart, you wouldn't have been hanging around with the bad group. That's the difference I see.
ROTFLOL!
Ya think?
Oh, yes indeed. :)
No such thing.
Law of diminishing returns. THe victim's judgement in this case was based on the same orientation. She figured the victim would not want to face the penalty, because she did have the limited street smarts to know that some operate that way. Fact is, that most of those are gone and only the dedicated killers are left. That is what Giuliani's crackdown was supposed to have done. What's left is the hardcore.
I guess the NYC "gun control" program is working really well for everyone. [irony]
Yes people who are well acquainted with their own laws... It's hilarious to meet girls from Iran who ask me about cosmetics and short skirts.
Yeah, "You told me", but you didn't give me statistics and cold hard facts as to the reasons why.
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