This photo has gone viral, and has made front page news all over the country. We are told this is a photo of an NYPD police officer who had just given a shoe-less, homeless man a new pair of boots. We are also told that this photo was taken by a tourist from Arizona, visiting Times Square, who just happened to capture the apparent act of generosity on camera, and then sent the picture to the NYPD, who posted the picture on their Facebook page.
While watching the various news video interviews of Officer Larry Deprimo, the police officer in the picture, I noticed a few interesting things about this whole story. First, in the different interviews conducted, Officer Deprimo always has a new part of the story, that makes this story seem more and more "movie-like". In one interview Deprimo claims he heard people laughing at the homeless man with no shoes, and that prompted him to go into a shoe store and tell the clerk, "I don't care about the price, gimmie whatever it is, that you have the best of!" In another interview Officer Deprimo talks about how he had two pairs of socks on, combat boots, and his feet were still freezing, which made him feel more sympathy for the shoe-less, homeless man. Deprimo also claims to have, afterward, offered the homeless man to come and "grab a cup coffee" or get "something to eat", to which the homeless man supposedly declined, and replied with "I love the police." Also, the lady who took the picture, claims that the officer didn't see her taking the picture, and she just snapped the flick and left. She says she didn't say anything to the officer, but still managed to get the picture to the NYPD. If you were writing a script, it couldn't come out much better than this.
Now let's examine the facts.
