NEW YORK (AP) — An Arizona tourist who snapped a wildly popular photo of a New York City policeman helping a homeless man says she feels a kinship for the officer.

Jennifer Foster appeared with Officer Larry DePrimo on the "Today" show Friday.

Says Foster: "We decided we're best friends."

DePrimo said he found the whole experience "surreal and extremely humbling." He said he just knew he had to help the man.

Foster, a resident of Florence, Ariz., took a photo of DePrimo giving new boots to the barefoot homeless man in Times Square on a cold night. It went viral after it was posted on the NYPD's Facebook page on Tuesday.

Foster said her father, a Phoenix police officer for 32 years, had once done something similar. Foster herself is a police dispatcher.