The NYPD cop who spent his hard-earned cash on a frigid night to buy boots for a shivering homeless man recalled the encounter as “humbling.”
“It’s what I felt I had to do,” Officer Larry DePrimo said yesterday of the Nov. 14 encounter in Times Square. “I just looked down at this gentleman’s feet, and you could see the blisters . . . It was just so cold that I had to do something.”
Moved by the unidentified man’s suffering, DePrimo spent about $50 to buy boots and socks. He put them on the man’s feet himself.
“What sticks out in my mind is that he was just such a kind gentleman that I really had to help him,” DePrimo said. “I wanted to. It’s a very humbling experience.”
AP
ON FOOT PATROL: Officer Larry DePrimo heads to address the press at Police Headquarters yesterday after this image (above) showing him giving a homeless man socks and a pair of Skechers boots — turned him into an Internet sensation.
The 25-year-old cop — whose base pay would be about $48,000 — did not know his good deed was being photographed by Arizona tourist Jennifer Foster, herself a law-enforcement veteran.
Foster sent the photo to the NYPD, which this week posted it to its Facebook page.
It went viral, and by late Thursday it had been shared more than 144,000 times and collected nearly 429,000 “likes.”
DePrimo, a two-year cop who works out of the 6th Precinct in the West Village, had been working a special Midtown detail near 44th Street when he saw the man walking barefoot on Seventh Avenue at around 9:30 p.m.
People were laughing at the man, recalled DePrimo, whose own feet were freezing in boots and two pairs of socks on the 35-degree night.
“I went up to him and said, ‘Where are your shoes?’ ” DePrimo recalled. “And he said, ‘It’s OK. I’ve never had a pair of shoes, but God bless you.’
“And that had really taken me aback, because this gentleman had enough heart to say God bless me, and he didn’t even have a pair of socks!”
DePrimo ran ahead of the man down Seventh Avenue, to a Skechers store, told them the situation and asked for help.
“I said, ‘Listen, I’d like to buy a pair of boots, something that’s going to last awhile,’ ” he recalled.
Saleswoman Kanissia Goslyn, 20, waited on the kindhearted cop.
“He said, ‘This guy outside is shaking, and he doesn’t have any shoes on. He looks like he’s dying,’ ” Goslyn told The Post.
“I asked what he needed, and he said he just wanted anything warm.”
DePrimo went out to ask the man his shoe size, and Goslyn found a pair of size 12, $99 “Skechers North” black boots lined with Thinsulate insulation.
“We gave him a 50 percent discount because of his kindness,” she said.
DePrimo also ran out and bought socks from another store.
“When I brought out the shoes, he had a smile from ear to ear — it was absolutely amazing,” DePrimo said of the homeless man.
Unaware the tourist Foster was watching, DePrimo had the man sit on the sidewalk, then knelt beside him and put the shoes and socks on his feet.
“I was never so impressed in my life,” Foster said.
DePrimo said the mystery man declined an offer to get a cup of coffee and something to eat.
“I was able to share that moment with him, and then he just continued to walk on his way,” the cop said. “It was a great moment for both of us.”
The cop’s gesture came as no surprise to his parents, who said he got them out of bed to tell them about it that night.
“It seemed to really bother him,” said DePrimo’s mom, Angela.
“He woke us up and started talking about this homeless man he’d seen, and how much it bothered him that people were making fun of the man.”
“The part that really got me was that he actually put the socks and the shoes on the man,” Angela said.
“A lot of people can buy things, but he actually bent down and put them on. When he told me that part, I just gave him a hug.”
“It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he’d do that, that’s the kind of guy he is,” said his dad, Lawrence.
“In college, after Hurricane Katrina, he made two trips with Habitat for Humanity to Louisiana to help. He’s a good, decent guy, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my son.”
DePrimo, who has an older sister and younger brother, was an honor-roll student at Connetquot HS in Bohemia, LI, and went to Pace University on a swimming scholarship, where he graduated with a history degree, his dad said.
“Everyone’s always liked him, from his principals to his teachers,” his mom said. “He’s just that kind of boy. I guess because he cares about other people.”
A certified teacher, DePrimo intended to pursue that career until the economy went south and he got accepted to the Police Academy.
He was presented with a pair of special cuff links by NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly — and said he hopes someday to meet the homeless man again.
“I’d probably try to get him something to eat again,” the cop said, “Because I was unsuccessful the first time and I don’t like having a bad track record.”
DePrimo said he keeps the receipt for the boots in his bulletproof vest.
“I think it’s an important reminder,” the officer explained.
“Especially now, some people have it really tough, and when you’re having a bad day, you might think things can’t get any worse, then you see something like this and you remember people have it worse.”
Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland
