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.
They are both excellent feints. As bluffs they depend on the cards in the attackers head.
Whatever. You keep believing that.
She was old enough and mature enough to make up her own mind. Her prior upbringing is a minor point. It's the "here and now" that matters.
If some idiot criminal punk is holding a gun aimed at you. Try not to taunt. Its not television, its real life. There won't be reruns and royalties.
While the shooter should be executed in public, IMO, that is a really stupid thing to say to a man with a gun.
Oh, Darwin Award nominee?
Harsher penalties deter crime.
Everything in the lives of all concerned led up to that moment. None of them could have acted any different. It's one of those deals where everything changes in an instant because of a couple wrong choices.
This happend in NYC. They've got the toughest gun laws in the country, next to Washington, DC.
Ok, then my only other advice is to practice your snap shot and use hollow points. Good luck.
I just play the odds...
You know, 15 years ago, I remember watching this guy with a giant mustache talking about how to deal with muggers.
He said, when confronted with a gun, grab your wallet and throw it away, run in the opposite direction. He stated most fatal gunshots occur within 10 feet, beyond 10 feet, chances of getting a fatal hit drop to almost zero. I don't know who he is, but some freeper will prolly identify him, but it's damn good advice. Unless you can blow the scumbag away, toss yer wallet and run. He also said to women, NEVER get in the vehicle. If you do, you're most likely going to be killed. If you get a chance to run, do it, beyond 10 feet, you're probably going to live.
I think that was really good advice and Ms. Dufrane prolly never heard it.
Do you remember being 14?
She didn't pull the trigger.
I think the poor girl panicked, in her way.
BTW, pray tell how are YOU going to make it happen in ONE generation? You sound a little off balance to me, considering the rural areas will be reaping the whirlwind of crystal meth in pretty much the same way that crack went through big inner cities. So let's here your plan for the black crime problem.
I know there's some sentiment around here, largely unspoken, that another leftie got wasted because she either wasn't carrying a gun, somehow deserved it because she was a leftie, or was somehow asking for it.
That's just wrong.
She didn't deserve this at all.
If that is not an accurate quote. I wonder how it got started?
I would not have been out at three in the morning with four other thugs on the weekend. I had a mother interested in my life.
Robbery is how they finance themselves, but the self-esteem part is VERY true. The lefties don't like this part, but good research has shown that the thing leading to this violence is not LOW self-esteem, but when someone's self-esteem is threatened. In other words, if we prop it up artificially, it is more likely to be threatened, leading violent reactions to try to preserve the false self-image.
I've seen the crystal meth people -- much more scary than crack heads.
Man, I miss good old fashioned junkies.
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