A white woman dubbed ‘Central Park Karen’ has been slammed by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio as a racist after a video showed her calling the cops on an African-American man who asked her to put a leash on her dog.
‘The video out of Central Park is racism, plain and simple,’ de Blasio tweeted Tuesday, in reaction to the footage of Amy Cooper, 41, hysterically dialing 911 on former Marvel Comics editor and writer Christian Cooper, 57, on Monday, claiming ‘an African American man is threatening my life’.
‘She called the police BECAUSE he was a Black man. Even though she was the one breaking the rules. She decided he was the criminal and we know why,’ the mayor continued. ‘This kind of hatred has no place in our city.’
Cooper has since been placed on administrative leave from her job as head of insurance investment solutions at Franklin Templeton, after footage of the confrontation in the wooded area known as The Ramble went viral. She also returned her dog Henry to a rescue shelter after viewers said she looked like she was choking him by dragging him by his collar.
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Cooper said she wanted to ‘publicly apologize to everyone’, insisting she isn’t a racist and didn’t intend to inflict any harm on the African-American community.
‘I’m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,’ she told the network. ‘I think I was just scared. When you’re alone in the Ramble, you don’t know what’s happening. It’s not excusable, it’s not defensible.’
Cooper says that now the video has sparked widespread outrage online, her ‘entire life is being destroyed right now’.
Amy Cooper, 41, has since apologized and has been placed on administrative leave from her job as head of insurance investment solutions at Franklin Templeton after the confrontation with bird watcher Christian Cooper, 57, in Central Park. She called the cops and told them an African-American man was threatening her life after he simply asked her to put her dog on a leash on Monday
Christian Cooper is an avid birdwatcher who noticed the dog unleashed in a wildlife protected area in Central Park but he claims when he asked her adhere to rules, she refused. He told NBC News: ‘If the habitat is destroyed we won’t be able to go there to see the birds, to enjoy the plantings. The only way they can keep the dog from eating the treat is to put it on a leash. At some point, she decided I’m gonna play the race card, I guess’
The incident has since been cited as yet another example of white people calling the police on African-Americans for unnecessary reasons, in acts many interpret to be fueled by racial prejudice.
‘I videotaped it because I thought it was important to document things,’ Cooper later explained to NBC New York.
‘We live in an age of Ahmaud Arbery where black men are gunned down because of assumptions people make about black men, black people, and I’m just not going to participate in that,’ he continued. ‘I’m not going to participate in my own dehumanization.’
When asked if he would accept Cooper’s apology, Christian, a senior biomedical editor at Health Science Communications, said ‘if it’s genuine and if she plans on keeping her dog on a leash in the Ramble going forward, then we have no issues with each other.’
Cooper has since conceded to CNN that she knew walking her dog unleashed in The Ramble was against the rules.
‘He was running in an open field. This man, he was bird-watching. He came out of the bush,’ Cooper said of Christian, claiming he was ‘screaming’ at her.
Christian, meanwhile, says the dog was ‘tearing through the plantings’, and he was not screaming at the dog walker, he ‘was actually pretty calm,’ he says.
Footage of the heated exchange was first shared by Christian and his sister, Melody Cooper, a writer and director on HBO’s Two-Sentence Horror Stories.
It begins with Cooper, nicknamed ‘Central Park Karen’ by social media users, stroking her rescue pet Henry then marching toward the camera, demanding: ‘Please stop, sir I’m asking you to stop.’
The woman is seen petting her pooch then suddenly asks the man to stop filming but when he doesn’t stop she marches directly up to him with a stern message
Christian, a former president of the Harvard Ornithological Club, claimed in a Facebook post that he alerted her to signs that states dogs cannot be walked in The Ramble without a leash as it’s an area that protects wildlife.
The man, who is an avid bird-watcher, claimed she replied that the dog runs are closed and her pet ‘needs his exercise’.
Christian explained in a Facebook post that he replied: ‘All you have to do is take him to the other side of the drive, outside The Ramble, and you can let him run off leash all you want.’
She replied: ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,’ Christian responded.
Cooper later told CNN that she ‘didn’t know’ what Christian meant by that, adding ‘when you’re alone in a wooded area, that’s absolutely terrifying, right?’
Christian then beckoned the pooch toward him and pulled out ‘dog treats I carry for such intransigence’.
But he stated he didn’t get a chance to toss any treats ‘before Karen scrambled to grab the dog’ and yelled: ‘DON’T YOU TOUCH MY DOG!’
‘That’s when I started video recording with my iPhone, and when her inner Karen fully emerged and took a dark turn…’ he wrote on Facebook Monday.
In the clip he responds: ‘Please don’t come close to me’ several times as the woman asks him to stop filming then tells him she’s calling the cops.
When Christian invites her to ‘please call the cops’, she responds, ‘I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.’
Christian responds to the dog owner: ‘Please tell them whatever you like.’
She is then heard saying: ‘I’m in The Ramble and an African-American man with a bicycle helmet, he is recording me and threatening my dog.’
She pauses for a moment then continues: ‘I’m am in Central Park, there is an African-American man. He is recording me and threatening my dog.’
There is another pause as the woman listens to the other end of the phone line then she suddenly sounds hysterical.
‘I’m sorry I can’t hear,’ she cries. ‘I’m being threatened by a man in The Ramble, please send the cops immediately…’
‘I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,’ she says as she gets closer to the man she apparently fears. The man tells her to say whatever she wants
The woman repeats to cops that an African American man is recording her dog but after a brief pause she becomes hysterical and claims he’s threatening her and her dog
The man says thank you and stops filming as soon as she attaches her dog to a leash
Christian wrote on Facebook that he offered the dog treats then things ‘took a dark turn’
After a brief pause she responds to the operator: ‘I’m in Central Park in the Ramble, I don’t know.’
In the Ramble Central Park, New York City, dogs must be restrained at all times a sign states
At that point the woman clips the dog onto a leash and Christian responds: ‘Thank you’ and stops filming.
His sister Melody Cooper responded to a Twitter user that as soon as the woman leashed the dog, he said thank you, stopped filming and ‘went about his business’. ‘This kind of entitlement dog walking happens weekly in The Ramble,’ she added.
Christian later explained to NBC New York: ‘If the habitat is destroyed we won’t be able to go there to see the birds, to enjoy the plantings.
‘The only way they can keep the dog from eating the treat is to put it on a leash. At some point, she decided I’m gonna play the race card, I guess.’
Christian says he continued to film the woman because he wasn’t going to be intimated. Police said they responded to the call but both Christian and Cooper were no longer there.
They said a call came in for a dispute, inside of Central Park’s Ramble, around 8am but no report was filed and no arrests were made. Sergeant Mary Frances O’Donnell said no one has come forward to police since.
Melody explained that her sibling ‘started filming her because she refused to put her dog on a leash and he sensed she was going to go full on Karen. And she did.’
Franklin Templeton issued a statement saying she has been placed on administrative leave
The rescue shelter where the woman is believed to have adopted the dog from said she returned the dog after social media users accused her of choking the dog
Adding to Cooper’s woes, president of the Central Park Civic Association, Michael Fischer, is urging Mayor de Blasio to permanently ban her from the park.
Fischer called Cooper’s actions ‘a disgusting display of intolerance’, and said such behavior should ‘never, ever be accepted in the City’s public domain like Central Park’.
‘The Central Park Civic Association condemns this behavior and is calling on Mayor de Blasio to impose a lifetime ban on this lady for her deliberate, racial misleading of law enforcement and violating behavioral guidelines set so that all can enjoy our city’s most famous park,’ he said, according to the NY Post.
He added that his association has received a multitude of complaints from local residents who were equally as outraged by the woman’s actions as he was.
While the NYPD have said they aren’t pursuing charges against Cooper, Fischer has urged the mayor’s office to take action.
‘The police, we know they’re busy and maybe they don’t need to be the ones taking the action,’ Fischer said. ‘Maybe the mayor needs to take the action and go through the process of not allowing her in the park unless she goes for rehabilitation and gets help.’
The community activist says his organization has not yet reached out to any city agencies regarding the incident, but he will be doing so in the coming days.
Manhattan DA candidate Eliza Orlins vowed to make sure Christian would not become yet another victim of the criminal justice system that had been criticized for disfavoring poor black Americans
A Manhattan DA candidate vowed to make sure Christian would not become yet another victim of the criminal justice system that has been criticized for disfavoring poor black Americans.
‘This is serious. Happened today in Manhattan. As a public defender for over a decade, I have tried cases where the Manhattan DA uses a “hysterical 911 call” as categorical evidence of guilt. Usually there’s no video like this to refute it,’ Eliza Orlins explained.
‘What happens: White lady calls the cops on Black man. Cops believe her. He gets arrested and then arraigned. Outrageous bail gets set. His family cannot afford to buy his freedom. He gets sent to Rikers Island, where he sits for any number of days, months, or years.
‘Eventually the case resolves in some way–gets dismissed or he takes a plea to the charge or a lesser offense to get out because he’s threatened with doing serious time. Meanwhile, he’s potentially lost his job, his home, his children. Right now, it is even worse.
‘People are sitting on Rikers Island on the basis of nothing more than an accusation (like in this video!) with the added risk of contracting COVID-19. So, we can call out these “Karens,” but also we need a Manhattan DA who is committed to real reform. I will be that DA.’
Her tweets evoked memories of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy killed in 1955 after Carolyn Donham accused him of assaulting her, as well as the Central Park Five.
Specifically, the teenagers dubbed the Central Park Five were wrongly accused of raping a white woman in the New York City park. They were convicted in 1990 and each served sentences from five years to 15 years before they were exonerated.
Social media users called for the woman in Monday’s video to be fired. In response, she was placed on administrative leave on Monday night.
‘We take these matters very seriously and we do not condone racism of any kind,’ Franklin Templeton stated on Monday. ‘While we are in the process of investigating the situation, the employee involved has been put on administrative leave.’
Throughout the video the dog is seen flailing around seemingly eager to be free of Amy Cooper’s restraint as she grabs the harness by the neck without attaching a leash. It led to calls from social media for the dog to be removed from her care due to concerns she was choking it.
Viewers of the video contact Abandoned Angels Cocker Spaniel Rescue which later said the dog had been returned.
‘Thank you to the concerned public for reaching out to us about a video involving a dog that was adopted from our rescue a few years ago,’ they wrote on Facebook. ‘As of this evening, the owner has voluntarily surrendered the dog in question to our rescue while this matter is being addressed.
‘Our mission remains the health and safety of our rescued dogs. The dog is now in our rescue’s care and he is safe and in good health. We will not be responding to any further inquiries about the situation, either.’
Speaking to NBC New York on Monday, Cooper said: ”I sincerely and humbly apologize to everyone, especially to that man, his family. ‘It was unacceptable and I humbly and fully apologize to everyone who’s seen that video, everyone that’s been offended … everyone who thinks of me in a lower light and I understand why they do.
‘When I think about the police, I’m such a blessed person. I’ve come to realize especially today that I think of [the police] as a protection agency, and unfortunately, this has caused me to realize that there are so many people in this country that don’t have that luxury.’