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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmy Cooper: New York Woman Calls Police on Black Man Who Asked Her to Leash Dog
https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/amy-cooper-video-new-york/Amy Cooper: New York Woman Calls Police on Black Man Who Asked Her to Leash Dog
Amy Cooper is a white New York woman recorded in a viral video calling police on a black man who asked her to leash her dog in the Ramble section of Central Park on Memorial Day. The incident on Monday, May 25, quickly spread on social media after the video was posted by the man she called 911 on, Christian Cooper, and Coopers sister, Melody Cooper. The video has been viewed more than 5 million times as of Monday night.
The video shows Amy Cooper telling Christian Cooper she would be calling the police on him and saying that she would tell dispatchers he was threatening her and her dog. The video does not show Christian Cooper making any threats, but does show him standing away from Cooper and encouraging her to call the police, while also asking her to stay away from him. Christian Cooper said he started recording the incident when she refused to put a leash on her dog, and when she moved toward him.
The video also shows Amy Coopers dog appearing to choke and struggle against his leash while Cooper tried to make a 911 call. No one was arrested and it is not clear if police are planning to investigate the incident further.
Christian Cooper, 57, is a former Marvel Comics editor and writer who now works as the senior biomedical editor at Health Science Communications. Christian Cooper is a birder and says he often watches birds in Central Park. The videos spread was helped by a tweet by his sister, a science fiction and horror writer who has worked at CW and HBO. Amy Cooper, who did not respond to a request for comment from Heavy, works at Franklin Templeton Investments.
Amy Cooper
Christian Cooper
still_one
(92,130 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Note that she was wrong. Video helps a lot.
likesmountains 52
(4,098 posts)Demovictory9
(32,448 posts)mcar
(42,300 posts)Link to tweet
?s=20
Christian Cooper, whom Amy Cooper tried to get killed by the police, is a Harvard graduate, a former Marvel Comics editor and now the senior biomedical editor at Health Science Communications
I need the progressive left to stop pretending income equality will solve racism.
Cirque du So-What
(25,927 posts)Stop feigning shock that incidents like this can happen in (gasp!) New York City instead of some red state peckerwood paradise. It's so widespread that no place is immune.
dalton99a
(81,443 posts)Most were educated professionals
Cirque du So-What
(25,927 posts)It never ceases to amaze how close to the surface this behavior lies. With some people, the least little thing can unleash a torrent of attempted retribution based on race. They most assuredly wish serious harm or death upon the target of their rage.
mcar
(42,300 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)to "solve" racism. (How about lessen?) All humans of all races are wired to widely varying degrees from mild suspicion ranging to intense hostility toward what is different, but money is power and having it changes societal attitudes on a large scale.
Everything that should be done that hasn't already been will be by empowered people. Minorities with money expect a lot more and get downright demanding about it, and most who link money with worth (almost everyone to some degree) agree those who have it are entitled.
Right now we're in the middle of a huge cultural backlash by the losers against way too much change too fast -- gender, sexual roles, race -- and specifically against the democracy and electoral majorities that created it. If it seems like the losers are willing to drag us all over a cliff out of spite, it's because they, and their current leaders, are.
What we're currently living through is not a failure of the equalizing power of democracy, legal advances, and good incomes, but a willingness to burn the nation down to destroy all the hated majorities have accomplished.
mcar
(42,300 posts)radius777
(3,635 posts)and isn't all about 'class' issues (although class obviously is important).
Because as Malcolm X noted, even a 'black man from Harvard' is still 'just a nigger' in the eyes of many/most whites.
This black man is/was accomplished upper class professional - yet was treated as 'just a scary nigger in the park threatening the safety of a (mediocre) white woman'.
dalton99a
(81,443 posts)Exhibit A: Donald Trump
Renew Deal
(81,855 posts)She clearly has issues. I can't imagine what that is about.
Suburban Warrior
(405 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)That man wasn't being the slightest bit threatening and she knew it, but she took the opportunity to try to get him arrested anyway. Not only that, but she was abusing that poor dog. I am glad she is going to pay for her racist, insane behavior.
Cha
(297,136 posts)dalton99a
(81,443 posts)Iggo
(47,549 posts)Cha
(297,136 posts)Iggo
(47,549 posts)Too bad she never heard of the internet.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)The woman has serious mental issues.
UTUSN
(70,680 posts)Demovictory9
(32,448 posts)wow. then the hysterics in her voice while talking to the cops
dalton99a
(81,443 posts)Demovictory9
(32,448 posts)Demovictory9
(32,448 posts)dalton99a
(81,443 posts)'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.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)to great advances in equality even worse. Hard to believe the extent of these depraved behaviors isn't the "worse before it gets better," though.
For all the worse, we are still a nation where most of these people are both despised by society at large and fired for cause if their employers find out. And they're also hemorrhaging critical numbers of traditional allies among the electorate.
Link to tweet
Next release will be that she is no longer with them.
Demovictory9
(32,448 posts)Luz
(772 posts)hang around to find out. Did he show them the video? I wish he would have recorded more.
Boomer
(4,168 posts)By the time the police showed up, both people had gone on their way and no report was filed.
But now, knowing the background of her call and her identity, they should cite her for bogus use of 911 and making a false police report.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)democrattotheend
(11,605 posts)Even though the have the same last name. Weird coincidence though. IDK what made this woman so scared, but the way she went out of her way to say "African American man" was inexcusable. I can understand if she didn't want to be filmed but there was no reason to bring race into it.
Boomer
(4,168 posts)The man video-taping her clearly asked her to step AWAY from him, so she is very obviously not being attacked. The only "threat" he made was to call her dog over with a treat, and as he predicted, that made her livid. Apparently (according to another article I read today), he often used that tactic to pressure dog owners to leash their dogs. That's a very clever, non-aggressive way to prod them into compliance with the leash laws.
She was pissed off that her freedom to ignore the law was being called out. And she immediately recognized that she could take control of the situation by trading on white privilege. She invoked the oldest, most vicious racist trope in the book: A black man is attacking a white woman.
What she did was a crime -- false report, frivolous use of 911 -- and immoral as hell.