Central Park birdwatching incident

Central Park birdwatching incident

The Ramble where the encounter between Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper occurred.
Date	May 25, 2020
Location	Central Park, New York City
Filmed by	Christian Cooper
Participants	Amy Cooper Christian Cooper
Charges	Amy Cooper: filing a false police report (dismissed Feb 2021)

On May 25, 2020, a confrontation occurred between Christian Cooper, a Black birdwatcher, and Amy Cooper (unrelated), a White dogwalker from Canada, in a section of New York City's Central Park known as the Ramble.

Amy's dog was unleashed in the Ramble, an area where leashing is required for the safety of the wildlife; she allegedly declined Christian's request that she leash her dog. According to his Facebook post describing the incident, Christian Cooper then told Amy Cooper he was about to do something she would not like and called her dog to him. When that did not work, Christian beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat, Amy yelled "Don't you touch my dog!".^[1]

Christian then recorded Amy, who after asking him to stop called 9-1-1 and said, "There is an African American man—I am in Central Park—he is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. Please, send the cops immediately!" The dispatcher called back^[2] and Amy Cooper said that Christian was assaulting her. But when asked to clarify, she said she had not been physically harmed. The definition of "assault" varies and in Canada where Amy Cooper is from includes threat of harm to a pet.

Ref: Section 264.1 https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-38.html#docCont

In 2013, the State of New York increased the penalty for taking a pet. Governor Cuomo specifically cited the family member status of pets and the particularly heartless nature of the crime. The relevance of this citation is to speak to Amy Cooper's legitimate emotional distress. In addition, Christian Cooper stated at the time that this emotional distress is induced intentionally. See article with Facebook post link cited earlier.

Ref: https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/new-york-state-increases-fines-for-pet-thieves-idUSKBN0FS2AD/

By the time New York City Police Department officers responded, both parties had left.

Additional context: During the pandemic, Manhattan closed all of its dog runs, compressing Manhattan dog walkers into half the legal off leash territory exactly as officials were telling people that they must maintain distance including in Central Park.

Ref: https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/all-dog-runs-dog-parks-nyc-be-closed

While off leash violations dramatically increased, citations dramatically decreased from 58 to just 1 by Central Park enforcement officers during the pandemic. There was likely a structural problem increasing tensions between birders and dog owners at the time.

Ref: https://nypost.com/2020/08/01/months-after-central-park-karen-birders-and-dog-owners-still-feuding/

The incident happened the same day as the arrest and murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Both incidents gained nearly instant media coverage due to video recordings being shared across social media.^[3] The month after, the New York state legislature passed a law classifying false police reports against protected groups of people—including race, gender, and religion—as a hate crime.

Shortly after the incident Amy's employer, investment firm Franklin Templeton, fired her and said in a statement that they "do not tolerate racism of any kind". Her suit against them for wrongful termination, in which she claimed they “caused her such severe emotional distress that she was suicidal,”^[4] was quickly dismissed.^[5] On July 6, 2020, the Manhattan District Attorney announced that Amy Cooper had been charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to one year in jail. The charges against her were dropped in February 2021 after she completed an educational course on racial identity. Amy left the United States and returned to her native Canada, citing doxing and death threats as among the reasons for doing so.

Christian cautioned against focusing on one individual and emphasized the wider problem of institutional racism in the United States. He wrote about the incident, his experiences birding, and the activity in general in his book Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. In an effort to make the birdwatching community more inclusive, he also hosted a National Geographic TV show Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper, for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2024.