Story behind photo of NYC cop helping homeless man
PHOENIX -- Jennifer Foster was a tourist from Arizona walking around Times Square when her eyes fixed on a man, apparently homeless. He was sitting on the sidewalk asking for change, his bare feet exposed to the 40-degree night.
Next, she saw a New York City police officer, bent down on a knee, giving him a brand-new pair of winter boots and some thermal socks. Foster used her cell phone to snap a photo of the act.
The picture would rocket through social media websites and appear in national media coverage this week, giving Foster and the officer a bit of fame. And Foster and the officer were scheduled to appear on NBC's "Today" show Friday morning.
Foster told the New York Times she did not take the picture intending to share it.
Instead, she said she snapped the photo because it brought back a childhood memory of her own father, a Phoenix police officer.
The photo was taken Nov. 14 -- ages ago, in an era of instant online posting. But Foster did not Instagram or Tweet or Facebook the picture. Indeed, she told the Times, she does not use Facebook.
She waited until she returned to Arizona, back to her job leading the communications and dispatch department of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office. Then, according to the Times, she sent the department an e-mail, a bit the way one would send a complimentary-comment card.
Someone at the NYPD asked her if she could send the photo and if the department could use it on its own Facebook site. Foster agreed.
The photo shows the officer crouched on his left knee, his head lowered under his uniform cap. The newly purchased boots with the insulated collars rest between him and the shoeless man.
The photo was posted on the NYPD's Facebook site Tuesday, along with a description of the scene provided to the department by Foster.
"I have been in law enforcement for 17 years," Foster wrote. "I was never so impressed in my life."
She said she overheard the officer tell the man that he had boots for him. "Let's put them on and take care of you," she quoted him as saying.
"The reminder this officer gave to our profession in his presentation of human kindness has not been lost on myself or any of the Arizona law-enforcement officials with whom this story has been shared," she wrote.
On Facebook, the photo took off.
Neither she nor the NYPD knew the identity of the officer when the photo was posted. A follow-up post by the department completed the story.
Officer Larry DePrimo, 25, was identified hours later. The Times said he lives with his parents on Long Island.
By Thursday afternoon, the post had received more than 400,000 "likes."
Comments posted there praised the officer. A woman from Winston-Salem, N.C., wrote: "You may not get a medal for your kindness, but I guarantee you that man will never forget you, and neither will anyone else who sees this pic!"
Some also praised Foster for her quick thinking. A woman from Ontario said, "I am so glad that someone took pics of a good cop."
Foster did not return e-mails seeking comment Thursday. A spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said she was flying to New York.
Foster, who appeared on "NBC Nightly News" Thursday. told the Times the image reminded her of a childhood memory of her father crouching down to give food to a homeless man.
Of DePrimo, she said, "The fact that he cared enough to stop his shift, his day, spend his time and now I know his own money, to do this thing for this gentleman who had nothing -- I can't say enough about it."
Foster's father, Steve Park, died of a heart attack in 2006, a Phoenix police spokesman said.
DePrimo, the NYPD officer who is assigned to the Sixth Precinct, told Newsday that the man "smiled from ear to ear" after getting the boots. "It was like you gave him a million dollars," he said.
He told the New York Times that he keeps the receipt for the boots in his vest to remind him "that sometimes people have it worse."
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) you're being a little too cynical, even for me....
