(New York) She lost her reputation first, then her dog, and finally her job. It now remains to be seen whether she will retain her right to set foot in Central Park again.
Posted on May 27, 2020 at 5:00 a.m.
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Amy Cooper, a Canadian who has worked in New York for several years, will no doubt long regret her decision to call 911 to complain about a man asking her to put her dog on a leash.
“My whole life is being destroyed right now,” she told CNN Tuesday morning, even before her employer announced her dismissal.
The incident, which ignited social media, occurred Monday morning on the Ramble, a heavily wooded part of Central Park and highly prized by amateur ornithologists. One of them, Christian Cooper, was there around 8 a.m. when he came across Amy Cooper (no kinship), who was walking his sparrow-free cockerel, in violation of the regulations.
Christian Cooper, a 57-year-old black man, asked Amy Cooper, a 41-year-old white woman, to put his dog on a leash. The woman, who would later say she was seized with fear, instead called 911, while restraining her agitated dog by the collar, a scene the man filmed on his cell phone.
“I’m going to tell them that there is an African-American man who threatens my life,” she said, signaling the number, a message she echoed when addressing the operator. “He’s African American,” she repeated.
In the early afternoon, Christian Cooper posted a video of the verbal argument on his Facebook page. Her sister, Melody Cooper, did the same on her Twitter account.. As of this writing, the video has been viewed over 36.5 million times.
Fired for “racism”
This was a particularly glaring example of a phenomenon amplified by technologies that make it possible to disclose and report incidents that once remained unknown. This phenomenon features whites who make up 911 to denounce blacks for no good reason.
By calling the police over a leash affair, Amy Cooper has also fueled a stereotype, that of the “Karen”, a nickname given to white women on social networks who give the impression that everything is due to them. In his message accompanying the video, Melody Cooper has also attached this term to Amy Cooper, prompting the American media to baptize her “the Karen of Central Park”.
But Internet users have not only criticized Amy Cooper for her behavior towards Christian Cooper. They also denounced the way she treated her dog Henry.
In the video, the woman is seen pulling hard on the cocker spaniel’s collar to subdue it.
Result: the shelter where Amy Cooper adopted her dog two years ago announced Monday evening that it had been entrusted to her care by her mistress until further notice. “He is safe and healthy,” the organization said on its Facebook page.
Shortly after, Amy Cooper’s employer, investment firm Franklin Templeton, announced on Twitter that she had been placed on administrative leave to conduct an internal investigation. Less than 24 hours later, Amy Cooper was fired.
“We don’t condone racism of any kind at Franklin Templeton,” the investment firm said on its Twitter feed.
” I am not racist “
According to an Instagram account that no longer exists, Amy Cooper was born in Canada, attended the University of Waterloo, Ontario, from 1998 to 2003, and received an MBA from the University of Chicago in 2009. On Tuesday morning, she apologized to “everyone, especially this man and his family.”
” I am not racist. I didn’t mean to harm this man in any way, ”she told CNN. She attributed her reaction to the fear she had experienced upon finding herself alone with a man in a secluded corner of Central Park.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio dismissed this explanation, saying the video showed “outright racism.”
A graduate of Harvard University and a member of the board of directors of the National Audubon Society, a venerable environmental organization, Christian Cooper mentioned Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man who was coldly shot in Georgia recently, to justify his decision to film his argument with Amy Cooper.
“We live in the age of Ahmaud Arbery where black men are shot because of the preconceptions people have about black men, and I was out of the question,” he told CNN.
Two police officers responded to Amy Cooper’s call. They did not write a report, however, in the absence of the parties involved in the dispute. The NYPD considers the case closed. But the president of the Central Park Civic Association has asked the mayor of New York to ban Amy Cooper from access to New York’s most famous parks for life.
“Our members are very offended by what this woman did in the park,” Michael Fischer said at a press conference.
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