Slaying Reminds New Yorkers of a More Violent Era

In the chilly evening darkness, more than 200 people held candles and walked to a quiet street corner on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. They were returning to the scene of a crime that has been front-page news in the Big Apple for more than a week.

It was there that Nicole duFresne, a young actress who had moved to the city two years earlier, angrily confronted a group of teenage muggers who had just pistol-whipped her fiance, police said. “What are you going to do, shoot us?” she reportedly demanded.

A gunman fired one shot in response, killing DuFresne, police said. As the muggers fled, her stunned fiance cradled her head in his arms, kissing her goodbye.

At last week’s impromptu street memorial, friends described DuFresne, 28, as a caring, fiercely protective person who was unafraid to speak out, even at moments of great danger.

Her death has touched others as well. It has struck a deep chord in a city that is celebrating a 70% drop in serious crime over 15 years.

It is a reminder of a more violent era that many would just as soon forget.

The Lower East Side, home to waves of immigrants, is one of the city’s safest precincts, according to New York Police Department statistics. Once a seedy, crime-ridden area overrun with gangs, the neighborhood has undergone a transition.

There are trendy restaurants, bars and boutiques luring more affluent people. Grimy tenements once notorious for squalor and fire hazards have been rehabilitated. A few blocks from the corner of Rivington and Clinton streets, where DuFresne was killed, two-bedroom apartments have been selling for $700,000.

“You wonder, how could something so brutal happen in an area like this?” asked Robert Johnson, a carpenter and former actor who was at the memorial. “New Yorkers don’t want to be reminded of the bad old days.”

As he spoke, a stiff, swirling wind blew newspaper clippings off the walls of a corner grocery. The tabloid front pages announced the death -- and the arrest of suspects in the slaying of DuFresne. Rudy Fleming, 19, of Staten Island is accused of being the gunman.

Police said teenagers attacked a man near the corner early Jan. 28. Then a group confronted the actress; her fiance, Jeffrey Sparks, 29; and two friends as they walked down Clinton Street at 3:15 a.m. after leaving a bar.

The youths came up to them and demanded money, police said. Sparks attempted to brush past them and was pistol-whipped in the face. When his assailant tried to grab the purse of Mary Jane Gibson, also an actress, DuFresne verbally challenged him.

“My main regret is that I didn’t take her hand and pull her with me down the sidewalk” after being attacked, Sparks told reporters before a Thursday afternoon memorial service at a community arts center building.

Sparks, an online music promoter, called the killing a “senseless act by someone who should never have been able to get a handgun in the first place.”

Acting on tips, police arrested Fleming in Staten Island on Jan. 31, and they subsequently apprehended Ashley Evans, 18, and Tatianna McDonald, 14. Fleming was charged with first-degree murder; the others face second-degree murder charges in the attack, police said. A friend of the man charged said the shooting was an accident.

“You’ve got to watch your back here,” said Brenda Pitmen, who strolled past the sidewalk memorial, as she handed out fliers for tax preparation services. “I know the city is safer, but bad things can still happen here. You can’t kid yourself anymore.”

Nearby, Emily Green walked her dog down a rain-slicked street and voiced concern over the killing. She loves New York. But she’s also worried.

“This area comes alive at night, because there are usually so many people on the streets, and you feel safe,” said Green, who described herself as a performance artist. “I mean, I wouldn’t move because of this. You just have to act safely.”

Friends have praised DuFresne, a native of Minneapolis and graduate of Emerson College in Boston, as a gutsy person.

She had come to New York by way of Seattle and was a playwright as well as performer in stage productions. She had been raped while a student in Boston, and friends said the experience had made her determined to stand up for herself. It also influenced much of her writing.

A confident, aggressive actress onstage, she may have been doomed by those same qualities when she ran into the group of teenagers, some have suggested.

And some have questioned the wisdom of the remarks she reportedly made to the gunman shortly before she was killed.

The crime “demonstrates that confronting an attacker is probably the worst thing you can do,” said Todd Post, spokesman for the National Crime Prevention Council, a Washington advocacy group. The council urges people who are confronted by an attacker to stay calm and comply with requests for money or other possessions.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly did not dispute that advice. But he also suggested in comments to reporters that “regardless of what the victim said or did not say, the person responsible for her death is the one who pulled the trigger.”

This was not lost on the mourners at the memorial service who took the stage last week to express their grief and outrage over DuFresne’s death. One after another, they condemned the killers. They wept over the loss of their friend. Many were in shock.

After the service they took to the streets, holding candles and assembling at the site where DuFresne was gunned down. Sparks drew a blue chalk outline of a body on the sidewalk, sprinkled alcohol on it, and then lit a fire that glowed in the dark.

“We want people to remember Nicole,” he said, before the group disbanded.

The next morning, snow and rain pelted the streets. The chalk outline and all traces of the smoldering fire were gone as the city hurried about its business.