Central Park dispute between woman, bird-watcher goes viral

The encounter appears to have begun as one of those banal and brusque dust-ups between two New Yorkers.

A black man, an avid birder, said he had asked a white woman to leash her dog in Central Park. She refused.

Then the encounter took an ugly turn.

As the man, Christian Cooper, filmed on his phone, thewoman, clutching her thrashing dog, calls the police, her voice rising.

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she says to him while dialing, then repeats to the operator,“He’s African American.”

The video touched off intense discussions about the history of the police being falsely called on black people, sometimes putting their lives in danger.

The woman’s name, Amy Cooper, soon began trending on Twitter.

By evening, Cooper was placed on leave by her employer, Franklin Templeton, while the incident was beinginvestigated. She was then fired Tuesday.

Internet sleuths digging into Cooper’s life found an Instagram profile of her cocker spaniel mix and began sharing old photos documenting injuries the dog had suffered.

By nightfall, she had surrendered the dog, Henry, to the group she had adopted him from two years prior, Abandoned Angels Cocker Spaniel Rescue.

“Upon arrival (at the park), police determined two individuals had engaged in a verbal dispute,” said Sgt. Mary Frances O’Donnell, a spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department.

No summons were issued and there was no arrest made.