The man who was confronted in New York’s Central Park by a woman who falsely told police “there’s an African American man threatening my life” said she doesn’t deserve the death threats she’s received in the days since video of the incident went viral on social media.
“I am told there has been death threats and that is wholly inappropriate and abhorrent and should stop immediately,” Christian Cooper told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview Tuesday night, adding that he still considered Amy Cooper’s actions to be racist.
“Where she went was a racist place. That action was racist,” he said. “Does that make her a racist? I can’t answer that. Only she can with what she does going forward. Maybe she was trying to gain an advantage. She went there, and she needs to reflect on what she did,” he said.
What happened
Amy Cooper was fired Tuesday from the global investment firm Franklin Templeton after video emerged of the argument in which she yanked her dog by the collar several times and then falsely told emergency dispatchers that her life was in danger.
Christian Cooper, an avid bird-watcher, was in an area of the park known as the Ramble when he politely asked Amy Cooper if she could put her dog on a leash as park rules required. Instead she threatened to call police.
As Christian began filming the episode, Amy Cooper can be seen grabbing her dog by the collar and lifting the animal off his front legs as she dragged him toward the man.
Credit: Social media photo
Credit: Social media photo
“Please don’t come close to me,” Christian Cooper is heard saying as the woman advances and points her finger at him, the video shows.
The two continue to exchange words until Amy Cooper, who was still holding the dog by the collar, retreated a few yards and called authorities.
The video shows Christian Cooper never moved toward the woman as she tussled with the dog, which was now agitated.
When Amy Cooper finally got emergency dispatchers on the phone, she sounded distressed and out of breath.
She then told authorities that an African American man with a bicycle helmet was recording her and “threatening myself and my dog.”
“Please send the cops immediately!”
At that moment, Amy Cooper hitches the dog’s collar again and the animal struggles to break free from her grasp.
“I’m being threatened by a man in the Ramble,” Amy Cooper yells to the dispatcher while struggling to leash the dog. “Please send the cops immediately!”
Sparked a firestorm
After the incident, Christian shared the footage to his Facebook page, where it has been viewed more than 30 million times. The short video shows Amy Cooper angrily approach him, point in his face and threaten to call the police. Christian Cooper can be heard exchanging words with the woman, but he never raised his voice or took any steps toward her.
Since the video was posted, Amy Cooper said her “entire life is being destroyed.”
Social media activists took snapshots of her Facebook profile, which were widely shared to shame her.
Christian Cooper calls the threats against Amy Cooper hypocritical.
“I find it strange that people who were upset that … that she tried to bring death by cop down on my head, would then turn around and try to put death threats on her head. Where is the logic in that?” Christian said. “Where does that make any kind of sense?”
Harvard graduate
Christian Cooper is a 1984 Harvard graduate. The 57-year-old works as a science editor at Health Science Communications.
He used to work as an editor for Marvel Comics, and introduced the first gay character into Star Trek comics, according to the LGBT-interest magazine The Advocate.
He is also an avid bird-watcher.
Racial profiling
Comments on Facebook and Twitter said the incident was a familiar reprise in modern society where someone who is white calls authorities as a way of weaponizing the police against black people.
Two similar incidents from April 2018 also received major media attention.
Two black men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks after the coffee shop’s manager called 911 to report them for trespassing when they were actually at the establishment for a business meeting.
Later that month, in an incident that became known as “BBQ Becky,” a woman in Oakland, California, called the police on two black men barbecuing, alleging they were trespassing and that they were breaking the law by barbecuing with a charcoal grill.
Christian Cooper said his own awareness of racial profiling in America led him to record the confrontation with Amy Cooper.
“I videotaped it because I thought it was important to document things,” Christian Cooper told CNN after the incident. “Unfortunately, we live in an era with things like Ahmaud Arbery, where black men are seen as targets,” he said, referring to the young black man who was shot to death in February while jogging through a neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia. “This woman thought she could exploit that to her advantage, and I wasn’t having it,” he said.
Investigation launched
New York City’s Commission on Human Rights has launched an investigation into the incident, the agency announced Tuesday.
“At a time when the devastating impacts of racism in Black communities have been made so painfully clear — from racial disparities in COVID-19 outcomes, to harassment of essential workers on the frontlines — it is appalling to see these types of ugly threats directed at one New Yorker by another,” said Sapna Raj, Deputy Commissioner of the Law Enforcement Bureau at the NYC Commission on Human Rights. “Efforts to intimidate black people by threatening to call law enforcement draw on a long, violent and painful history, and they are unacceptable.”
If Cooper is found at fault by the commission, she could face fines or sensitivity training, or could be made to pay damages to Christian Cooper.
Accuser apologizes
Later Monday, in a call with NBC New York, Amy Cooper said she “humbly and fully apologizes to everyone who’s seen that video.”
“I’m not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way,” she said. “I think I was just scared,” Amy Cooper said. “When you’re alone in the Ramble, you don’t know what’s happening. It’s not excusable, it’s not defensible.”
The incident happened on the same day that a police officer in Minneapolis, Minn., was filmed pinning a handcuffed suspect down by kneeling on his neck. George Floyd, a black man suspected of forgery, later died at the hospital. Four officers have since been fired and the FBI is investigating.
