NYPD officer giving winter boots to barefoot homeless man Read more:

Originally posted by CX
*Listens to the mind cogs working overtime on the forum.

New York Good Cop's Boots Gift Is Web Hit

The photograph was taken by Jennifer Foster, who works in an Arizona sheriff's office.

Probably just luck.

CX.

From another article,

On a November 14 trip to New York City, Arizona tourist Jennifer Foster snapped this cell phone photo of an NYPD police officer, later identified as Officer Lawrence DePrimo, offering a pair of shoes to a barefoot homeless man. When she sent the photo to the NYPD, they promptly posted it to Facebook, where it has received more than 327,000 likes and has been shared 81,000 times.

Foster, a communications director for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office in Arizona, told the NYPD what happened when she saw a homeless man asking for change:

Right when I was about to approach, one of your officers came up behind him. The officer said, "I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let’s put them on and take care of you." The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man. The officer expected NOTHING in return and did not know I was watching. I have been in law enforcement for 17 years. I was never so impressed in my life. I did not get the officer’s name. It is important, I think, for all of us to remember the real reason we are in this line of work. 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.”

According to the New York Times, the 25-year-old officer did not know about the photo and was not told before it went online.

As the man walked slowly down Seventh Avenue on his heels, Officer DePrimo went into a Skechers shoe store at about 9:30 p.m. “We were just kind of shocked,” said Jose Cano, 28, a manager working at the store that night. “Most of us are New Yorkers and we just kind of pass by that kind of thing. Especially in this neighborhood.”

Mr. Cano volunteered to give the officer his employee discount to bring down the regular $100 price of the all-weather boots to a little more than $75. The officer has kept the receipt in his vest since then, he said, “to remind me that sometimes people have it worse.”


Read more: www.upi.com...

This forum makes me so depressed sometimes, honestly

Originally posted by Stormdancer777

This forum makes me so depressed sometimes, honestly

Oops. I see you beat me to this story.

I hear you though. the negativity around here can be stifling.

Keep up the good work though. Positive news does have a re-assuring effect on positive people.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...

Originally posted by Taupin Desciple

Originally posted by Stormdancer777

This forum makes me so depressed sometimes, honestly

Oops. I see you beat me to this story.

I hear you though. the negativity around here can be stifling.

Keep up the good work though. Positive news does have a re-assuring effect on positive people.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...

thank you

reply to post by Stormdancer777


I'm not usually a big fan of cops, as most of them seem to be crooked in my experience, but sometimes I run into a good cop and this guy's definitely a roll model for cops, imo. Props to that guy.

Love this story, thank you for posting it! We all need to open our eyes and our hearts to those who may not be victims of the latest Katrina or Sandy, but are victims of an internal storm just as devastating. Compassion and kindness can go a very long way to help heal.

We're all so quick to criticise all policemen when one does something wrong. But they are not all daemons. Some are better men than us.

Great thread

I know I'm jaded but I can't help but think its publicity stunt. It was entered into a website that was created for this type of thing. It's a picture rather than a video which doesn't mean anything, but still worth noting. I just can't help. But consider it might be staged. NYPD needs this kind of publicity after all the corruption charges and rapes comitted by officers.

reply to post by gladtobehere


Known a lot of people going into Law Enforcement.

Most of them the right people for the right reasons. It's easy to become hardened to reality when you see sights like this every day.

I am a 200 lb grown man in my 30's and this story brought me to tears. This poor guy simply needed help and a great man gave it to him. Nothing more--no strings -- no expectations.

This picture has thawed out some of the ice in both of my eyes... I thought kindness was gone forever.

Nah there are plenty of good cops out there, it's just rare to see something like this.

I could write a huge thread on all the things we used to do on patrol, or what i've seen from officers, but half of it wouldn't be believed, and as my post implied.....i know the way some of the minds here work.

You gotta admit though, if it was a politician doing this, and a member of his staff took the pic.....well yanno.

CX.

Are you sure hes not confiscating the guys boots?
This being taken by an employee of Law enforcement smacks of proaganda...where were all the understanding cops at Occupy Wall Street?

I reckon this was just a rare caught moment of kindness.

However......if for a reason it was a propaganda pic.....to be honest, i'd let this one go.....a homeless guy got a decent pair of boots out of it.

Better than some of the stunts we see and no good comes out of it.

CX.

reply to post by gladtobehere


I hate to by a cynic...but there is something inside me that wants to agree with you.

If I needed new shoes, sitting outside a shoestore would be the perfect place to score a donated pair...

if only we would have cop like this officer
we would live in a very happy and loving world

thanks for sharing SNF

I guess the NYPD now has a public relations team.

It's absolutely pathetic that even on a heartwarming article like this, cop-haters are still out in full force. It is a sad state when your life is so meaningless and shallow, that you can not be happy about something like this.

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
reply to post by gladtobehere

 

I hate to by a cynic...but there is something inside me that wants to agree with you.

If I needed new shoes, sitting outside a shoestore would be the perfect place to score a donated pair...

Seriously?? Your skeptical, and think it's staged because the guy was sitting outside a shoe store? Your cynicism sucks, dude!

Originally posted by joyride0187

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
reply to post by gladtobehere

 

I hate to by a cynic...but there is something inside me that wants to agree with you.

If I needed new shoes, sitting outside a shoestore would be the perfect place to score a donated pair...

Seriously?? Your skeptical, and think it's staged because the guy was sitting outside a shoe store? Your cynicism sucks, dude!

edit on 29-11-2012 by joyride0187 because: (no reason given)

Have to say, it's not as unheard of as it might seem.

I've given tons of stuff to homeless people here in the UK, including the shoes of my feet, and whilst i'm not saying it doesn't happen, i've never seen a barefooted homeless person. So being outside a shoe shop would be a good way of doing it. Not saying he is pulling a fast one, but you can't have a go at someone for seeing another side to it. It happens with every single other thread on this site after all.

Bit like the homeless sitting right next to the ATM's in town......you think that might be just a coincidental location to sit? Course not.

Best of luck to them if it works, but some don't buy it.

CX.

I've given tons of stuff to homeless people here in the UK, including the shoes of my feet, and whilst i'm not saying it doesn't happen, i've never seen a barefooted homeless person. So being outside a shoe shop would be a good way of doing it. Not saying he is pulling a fast one, but you can't have a go at someone for seeing another side to it. It happens with every single other thread on this site after all.

Bit like the homeless sitting right next to the ATM's in town......you think that might be just a coincidental location to sit? Course not.

Best of luck to them if it works, but some don't buy it.

CX.

Its possible that the homeless guy was pulling a fast one but how is this propaganda and staged just because the homeless man was sitting outside a shoestore?

When I worked in Chicago, I found that night is the only time that you can be sure the homeless people are really what they appear to be, whereas in the day time there are more scammers than homeless people.

Originally posted by joyride0187

When I worked Chicago, I found that night is the only time that you can be sure the homeless people are really what they appear to be, whereas in the day time there are more scammers than homeless people.

Very true.

Same everywhere you go, it's like a 9-5 job for many, some even pack up, go round the corner and get into a nice car and leave.

I just think that we should accept an skepticism in a thread like this as much as we are forced to accept others opinions in any other thread on the board. Yeah it might not be nice, but thats opinion for you.

I think this also goes to show what a huge job the police over there have to do on improving their image.

This should be a regular thing brought about by the heads of department, or at least encouraged by the hierarchy. Yes i know they have other things to do, but an act like this can do wonders. It takes seconds.

We use to take the whole shifts night ration boxes, filled with sandwiches, pies, choccy, sweets and drink... and drive them straight down to the big cardboard city under a bus station in Germany. We'd eat any time, those in teh boxes didn't know when they'd eat next. Word got round and we'd often get a thank you from homeless people in other parts of the city.

Makes a difference.

CX.