‘More cops in parks’
‘Karen’ victim backs bid for leash-law crackdown
The black bird-watcher falsely accused of threatening a white dog-walker wants more police in Central Park.
Christian Cooper, who filmed his encounter confronting Amy Cooper on May 25 because her pooch was running loose, is backed an Upper West Side community-board proposal that calls on the NYPD’s park cops and Parks Enforcement Patrol to do a better job of enforcing dog regulations.
Christian Cooper and other supporters told Community Board 7’s Parks & Environment Committee that the resolution addresses a longstanding feud between birders and dog-walkers in Central Park — one that morphed into an international example of racism after Amy Cooper called the NYPD on him when he asked her to leash her dog per park rules.
“An African-American man with a bicycle helmet, he is recording me and threatening my dog,” she tells the 911 operator in his video, which went viral.
Amy Cooper, dubbed “Central Park Karen” after the name that has come to be used for entitled white women, was roundly criticized for endangering Christian Cooper by calling the cops.
The confrontation has given momentum to the birding community’s quest for more order, Christian Cooper explained.
“It is long overdue,” he told committee members on a Zoom public hearing. “I want to voice my full support for it, 100 percent. This is not about a race issue. It became about a race issue in this particular instance, but what it really was, up until that moment, was a conflict between a birder and a dog-walker, and we have seen that way too much in the park.
“The conflict would never have happened if only there had been some regular enforcement up until that point.”
The panel went on to pass the measure.