Amy Cooper Will Be Charged with Filing a False Report
Amy Cooper, the white woman who called police on Black bird watcher, Christian Cooper, will face misdemeanor charges, New York Times reports.
According to the Times, Amy Cooper will be charged with filing a false report (a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail) after falsely accusing Christian Cooper, a Black man, of threatening her life after he asked her to put her dog on a leash in New York's Central Park.
"Today our office initiated a prosecution of Amy Cooper for falsely reporting an incident in the third degree," said Cyrus R. Vance, the Manhattan district attorney. "We are strongly committed to holding perpetrators of this conduct accountable."
The incident, which occurred over the Memorial Day weekend this year, was recorded on video by Christian Cooper's sister Melody, and subsequently went viral online. In the video, Amy Cooper can be heard referring to Christian Cooper as "African-American" three times during her 911 call, just after she threatened to report that "an African-American man is threatening my life."
The encounter sparked discussions about the history of Black people being falsely reported to police and took place just hours before George Floyd was killed by Minnesota police officers, initiating worldwide protests.
"He had every right to request that I leash my dog in an area where it was required," Amy Cooper said in a written statement following backlash. "I am well aware of the pain that misassumptions and insensitive statements about race cause and would never have imagined that I would be involved in the type of incident that occurred with Chris."
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Christian Cooper told The View he accepts the apology, but that the incident is part of a deeper problem of racism in America.
"I do accept her apology," he said. "I think it's a first step. I think she's gotta do some reflection on what happened because up until the moment when she made that statement ... it was just a conflict between a birder and a dog walker, and then she took it to a very dark place. I think she's gotta sort of examine why and how that happened."
