Photo Of NYPD Officer Giving Homeless Man New Boots Goes Viral After Going Up On Facebook

This photo of New York City police Lawrence DePrimo giving a pair of boots to a homeless man has gone viral after the NYPD put it up on its Facebook page. The good deed was snapped by a tourist from Arizona, who forwarded a written description--not, you understand, a formal statement--to the relevant department. The NYPD asked her to email the photo, she duly did so, they stuck it on Facebook and, voila, 275,000 "Likes" and 16,000-plus comments.

Cynics may huff and puff that the story amounts to nothing more than an exercise in rebranding law enforcement online--Jennifer Foster, the tourist who took the shot works as a civil communications director in an Arizona sheriff's office. But maybe it's more than that--strip away the protagonists of the story and you've got an individual act of charity that continues the conversation started in the aftermath of Sandy.

[Image by Jennifer Foster]