WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Hillman is a man who shambles the streets
of New York City looking quite unkempt, drab, and hopeless. He
panhandles sometimes and mutters to himself. Frankly, he looks a
wreck and apparently often in need of a pair of shoes. On cold
winter nights he gets them.
One cold November night Officer Lawrence DePrimo spotted Hillman
seated shoeless on the pavement of Times Square, and the young
policeman left his post, went into a store nearby, and bought
Hillman a pair of shoes costing $100. He even helped Hillman put
them on. A tourist snapped a picture of DePrimo doing this, and the
picture appeared on Facebook. It went viral, and was seen around
the world — a young New York City cop, putting shoes on a
beggar.
What an auspicious way to begin the Christmas season. Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg declaimed, “That’s what they’re trained to do
— help people.” Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly was more
appreciative. He gave the 25-year-old policeman a pair of police
department cuff links at a private meeting. Others now claim to
have bought Hillman shoes over the years. My guess is he has got a
stash of them some place. Possibly he is planning to open a shoe
store. Assuming, that is, that his tax rate does not go up under
President Obama.
We are learning more about Hillman as time goes by. He is not
homeless. The New York Daily News reports that the
54-year-old lived from 2009 to 2011 in transitional housing sites
called “Safe Havens.” Owing to his status as a veteran, he then
secured his present apartment through the Department of Veterans
Affairs. Veterans outreach services have continued to try to help
but apparently for naught. A spokeswoman for the city’s outreach
services reported that Hillman “has a history of turning down
services.” Doubtless some day he will become ill, and the city will
put him in some government program to recuperate, possibly
Medicaide, possibly Obamacare.
The more one looks into the case of this beneficiary of state
and federal welfare the more curious his plight is. The Daily
News reports that he played basketball for South Plainfield
High School in New Jersey. A smiling Hillman is pictured in the
South Plainfield High School yearbook horsing around with
classmates, one of whom, John Graf, became a minister. Actually
Hillman looks much different than the shambling vagrant seen in
Times Square without shoes in November. He looks pretty middle
class. His classmates look rather prosperous too and quite happy.
What happened?
Today he seems crazed. He is grateful for DePrimo’s kindness,
but he is angry at the world. I sense a notion of entitlement. “I
was put on YouTube,” he says, “I was put on everything without
permission. What do I get?” Perhaps he will get a media agent.
Possibly he has been reading Paul Krugman’s diatribes in the
New York Times. He goes on, “This [his picture without
shoes and with DePrimo looking on] went around the world, and I
want a piece of the pie.” That certainly sounds like a Krugman
idea. I wonder if Krugman is going to help him with the pie. Could
Hillman become a lecturer at Harvard State University Law School?
Derelicts have lectured there before.
Recall back in the late 1980s when Joyce Brown, a homeless woman
who was quite mad, was invited to Harvard State to give a lecture
on homelessness. She came to a bad end, returning to the streets
shortly thereafter, shouting obscenities at passersby, lurching
into traffic, exposing herself. Her end was not edifying. At any
rate, she was just part of a long parade of unfortunate wretches
who have been invited to our nation’s college campuses, starting
with our leading college campuses, there to illustrate one or
another of the weird desiderata of the left-wing’s credo.
Hillman, as the beneficiary of endless state and federal
largess, might well be memorialized in American history with a
special designation. Call him “Obama Man.” In Hillman’s belief
system and his lifestyle he represents roughly speaking all that
President Barack Obama has in mind for America. It is a citizenry
basically beholding to government. And DePrimo, what will we call
him? Call him the modern Good Samaritan, and tax him to death. He
deserves it.
