Homeless man given pair of boots . . . seen wandering the streets shoeless
NY Daily News ^ | December 3, 2012 | Barry Paddock AND Bill Hutchinson Posted on Monday, December 03, 2012 9:52:06 AM
The barefoot homeless man who was given a pair of shoes by a kind-hearted beat cop is wandering the streets shoeless again.
Jeffrey Hillman, 54, was spotted panhandling on the upper West Side Sunday without the $100 boots NYPD Officer Lawrence DePrimo bought for him on a frigid November night in Times Square.
“Those shoes are hidden,” Hillman told The New York Times after he was spotted walking around with no shoes on Broadway near W. 79th St. “They are worth a lot of money. I could lose my life.”
A tourist from Arizona snapped a cell phone photo of DePrimo giving the boots to Hillman on Nov. 14, and the picture quickly went viral, making the selfless cop a national celebrity.
“I appreciate what the officer did, don’t get me wrong. I wish there were more people like him in the world,” Hillman said.
“I want to thank everyone that got onto this thing. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. It meant a lot to me. And to the officer, first and foremost.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Hillman told the newspaper he was from South Plainfield, N.J., and joined the Army in 1978, serving as “food service specialist” for five years before he was honorably discharged. He also said he’s the father of two grown children — Nikita, 22, and Jeffrey, 24.
“We love our brother very much,” Hillman’s brother, Kirk, of Nazareth, Pa., told the Daily News Sunday, adding that he was surprised to see his brother in the newspaper. “Our door is always open to him, but this is a lifestyle he’s chosen.”
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/homeless-man-boots-shoeless-article-1.1212149#ixzz2E0HejvVhProbably sold the shoes for a quick hit of heroin or a bottle of booze.