Maybe if I run around NYC barefoot I can a pair of C&J Islay boots from Barney’s.
This is why I don’t give to beggars and panhandlers. You never know if you are being scanned.
If I want to help the poor, I’ll give to a reputable charity. Hopefully, in this way someone who really needs assistance will be more likely to get it.
Probably a professional panhandler.
Walking in the morning towards the platform in a subway in Madrid, Spain, I used to drop a coin in the cup of a middle aged gypsy woman with several barefoot and half-naked children. I was in high school then, but I still remember feeling awful for her. Then, one day, she was in a loud argument with another gypsy and that is how I found out that she was “renting” the children. Apparently she was late paying and the other woman was “repossessing” the children!! I never gave her another penny. She was still there when I graduated, so she must have been making a living!
Another of the growing army of “disabled” on Social Security disability. We all hear talk of senior citizen retirees when we discuss SS reform. But the biggest problem is lazy guys like this. Grifters.
I’m surprised the cop was that naive, but I guess it’s because he’s a rookie. He’s got a good heart but he was scammed plain and simple. I grew up, still live in NYC (unfortunately) these bums pull these kind of scams all the time, especially on tourists which no doubt is what he was aiming for.
Did it not seem strange to this cop why this dude was sitting in front of a shoe store with his bare feet sticking way out into the sidewalk? And in Times square? Come onnn. And now he’s doing it again. He sees it works, so he will do it again and again and again and sell the shoes to some tourist for $10 bucks which is what he probably did 10 minutes after the cop bought him those shoes.
That whole area in Times square is just one huge cesspool of scammers and thieves. I walked through there last year and did a test, I had an old wallet I was going to throw out, but instead I put it in my back pocket and let it stick out bit and walked from 7th ave and 42nd st heading north. Before I even got two blocks I thought I felt something, so I reached around and guess what? The wallet was gone! *What* a surprise!
I had a liberal woman in my car one day. She was scrambling in her purse for money to give to one of those bums on the street corner with the sign.
I told her, “hey, don’t do that, you’ll teach him to associate people with food”.
A fed bear is a dead bear.
I thought she would pop a critical vessel. lol
Oh well, i hear apartments in NYC are inexpensive, and easy to find.
Praise Jesus! I can WALK!!
From “Trading Places” a classic very funny movie, which could NOT be made today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKtjBqJ4NxA
However,what that cop did was,in fact,a very decent thing even though it may have been inadvisable...even if the guy was,in fact,homeless.
I worked for 20 years in the ER of a major hospital of a large,Northeastern city.In winter alcoholics/addicts/schizophrenics used to come in all the time wanting "medical clearance" to go to a detox/psych facility.They'd almost invariably sign themselves out of the facility at the first hint of better weather and,voila!,we'd see them at the next cold snap...."I wanna go to detox".
Mentally ill or a scammer? No, he just happens to wonder around Times Square in December without shoes.
Something really stunk here from the beginning.
I could smell the stench all the way here to Panama.
What a wonderful officer. The gods bless him.
Shocked, I say - SHOCKED!
I lived in NYC for a couple of years. The number of scammers is mind-numbing. My favorite is the “belt scam.” It goes like this...
You come out of the subway station. A confused man in a suit comes up to you and asks what street he is on. He explains that he got off at the wrong subway stop and that he has an interview in 20 minutes uptown. UNFORTUNATELY, he has left his wallet at home and now doesn’t have the requisite fare to get uptown for the job interview. He’s out of work and desperately needs the job.
“Tell you what - I’ll sell you my belt for $2! It’s really nice, worth way more than $2. That will get me subway fare!”
At this point, most suckers just feel sorry for the desperate guy and give him the $2. He disappears down the subway stairs and you gone on your way thinking you may have helped someone get a job.
If you agree to buy the belt, he’ll start to take it off, but then balk, claiming he’ll look ridiculous in the interview without a belt. He then says he’s just going to try running, but thanks anyway. (He’s hoping that you’ll have the money out already and will just hand it to him.) He’ll then run off.
BUT...
Come back two hours later. The same guy will be there scamming different people for $2 dollars. Again and again. The total dialogue only takes about 2 minutes, so - if he’s good - he can do this 30 times an hour. Most of the time, he’s successful because people want to help the nicely dressed, out-of-work businessman who is just desperate to get to his job interview.
I’m now officially jaded to ALL types of beggars. NYC taught me that.
Well look on the warm side: those boots found a nice warm home in his Bronx apartment.
So, it was still an act of kindness. God Bless the officer. Better to hear stories like this then dogs being shot of homeless men being shot by the Po Po.
Scammer = Democrat
Now he has to realize that the jig and gig is up.
You want to know why Bruce Sprinsteen supports Obama? It’s because they’re both con men. When you buy a Springsteen CD for $15, what do you get? A nickels worth of plastic and papr and a good feeling. He knows it’s a con. Same with Robert Redford....he’s a con man and not just in that movie. You pay $10 to see one of his movies, and what do you have? You rent a seat for a couple of hours and you have an emotional feeling. It’s a con. And Redford knows it. That’s why he’s such a liberal Democrat. They like con men.
The real purpose of the so ridiculed “church lady”.
She knew who was who and who needed what.