The Business of Giving: Vincent D'Onofrio of "Criminal Intent" to Auction Acting Lessons for a Great Cause

Minyanville
Michael Erb
March 20th, 2012

After years of working on "Law & Order," the TV star has come to understand that real-life cops "are not the type of people to ask for help."
Actor Vincent D’Onofrio has played a troubled marine trainee in Full Metal Jacket and a marauding alien bug in Men in Black. These days he's best recognized for his role as Detective Robert Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.  And now, he’s offering acting lessons for a good cause. 
 
Mr. D’Onofrio is working with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, taking part in a Charity Buzz auction that ends tomorrow. The highest bidder gets three acting sessions with D’Onofrio, a graduate of the famed Actors Studio and the American Stanislavski Theatre.

The NLEOMF is dedicated to honoring law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty and inform the public about the dangers police face every day. The charity has built a memorial to fallen officers of every branch, located in the Judiciary Square section of Washington DC. Now the fund is building a museum to open near the current memorial.  The National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum is slated to open in 2014. 

According to D’Onofrio, it will be quite the sight.  
 
“One of the most incredible things about the museum is that there’s going to be a glass bridge that stretches across the main entrance of the museum," D'Onofrio explains in a phone call from his home in New York. "And inside the glass bridge, there's going to be a thin blue line. That line is going to be made up of all the fallen officers up to that point, and names added to it all the time. It’s going to be an incredible thing."
According to NLEOMF statistics, there's an officer killed every 53 hours in the US.  Their new preliminary data for 2011 calculates 173 police men and women died in the line of duty last year. The data also shows that deaths of officers have gone up 13% since 2010, and 42% since 2009.

“I’ve been involved in law enforcement stuff for years now,” D’Onofrio told me. His work on Law & Order compelled him to help law enforcement officers in any way he could.  “I think that because I ended up meeting so many law enforcers -- local, all over the country, all over the world actually -- I started to know a lot about the behind the scenes kind of stuff with their jobs. They're not the type of people to ask for help.
 
“I just think it’s important that we do this for everybody and try to help out,” he adds.
 
If you wish to take part in the auction, you can bid here.  Head to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, to make a direct donation.