MAN SHOT IN HOME INVASION A PEACENIK:
The grad student shot in a home-invasion horror on the Upper West Side is a peace activist who hails from a small Pennsylvania town and moved to the Big Apple only last year, friends said yesterday.
Keith Whitmoyer, a 24-year-old philosophy student at the New School, is battling lung and stomach wounds in St. Luke's Hospital after Sunday's vicious attack. He was shot in front of his terrified fiancée after a thug followed her into their building on West 108th Street and pushed his way into the apartment, demanding cash.
After robbing the pair, the burglar appeared to linger, prompting Whitmoyer to ask, "Are you going to shoot me now?" The thug then pumped three bullets into him.
I recall the story of a writer of crime dramas who rode around for months with friends in the LAPD to get police procedural background and observed that many of the homicide cases involved folks who said, "Go ahead, shoot me!" They did.
Whitmoyer and van Leeuwen are human-rights activists and volunteer with "The War Resistors League," friends said.
Maybe he has learned something. Probably not.
