She’s at it again!
Amy Cooper – the now infamous ‘Central Park Karen’ – is raging again.
This time Cooper is raging in a lawsuit against her former employer who fired Cooper after that May 25, 2020 incident in New York City’s Central Park.
An enraged Cooper called police and falsely accused a Black man of “threatening” her life during that Central Park encounter – all captured on a cellphone video that went viral.
That Black man, a bird watcher, called Cooper out for her failure to follow a Central Park regulation that required leashing her dog. That birder’s prompt for Cooper to follow that park leashing regulation ignited her racially tinged response.
Cooper’s cringe-worthy full ‘Karen’ response – widely considered racist – precipitated her discharge from the financial firm where she worked and is now suing.
Cooper’s lawsuit, however, claims her discharge was wrongful discrimination, an abuse against her because she is white and a female.
The bird watcher’s cellphone video of his encounter with Cooper captured rage rooted in white privilege. Cooper called police essentially to demand protection for her presumed right to do wrong: flaunting posted dog leash regulation.
That dog leash regulation covers the Ramble, a heavily wooded section of Central Park that is home to over one hundred bird species, many of them ground-dwelling birds. That leash requirement for the Ramble seeks to protect birds. Unleashed dogs can disturb birds and damage bird habitats.
Cooper’s false accusation against the bird watcher could have ended badly for that Black man given the history of racist police brutality against Blacks across America. Cooper’s lie about that Black bird watcher threatening her life did occur on the same day that a policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota murdered George Floyd…a Black man who wasn’t threatening anyone.
Cooper compounded her first fraudulent call to police with another false allegation during a second 911 communication. During that second communication, Cooper accused that bird watcher with attempting to assault her. Cooper retracted that false assault claim a short time later when she talked to police.
Prosecutors cited Cooper’s false assault allegation – not captured on video – in their case against her. Authorities charged Cooper for her abhorrent act of filing false reports with police.
Like that 2020 incident where Cooper tried to weaponize police to protect her sense of privilege, Cooper’s 2021 lawsuit seeks to weaponize the court system to preserve her sense of entitlement.
Cooper wants courts to produce a big payday for her from her former employer. Cooper seeks compensation from her scam-worthy wrongful discharge claim.
The lawsuit alleges Cooper did not “shout” at the bird watcher because she was a “racist.” According to the lawsuit, Cooper reacted the way she did because she was “alone in the park and frightened” scared that she might be victimized by the “overzealous” bird watcher.
Cooper’s lawsuit also claims her former employer defamed her through depicting her actions during the park incident as racist.
The lawsuit claims her former employer “perpetuated and legitimized the story of “Karen” vs. an innocent African American… with reckless disregard for the destruction of [Cooper’s] life in the process.”
The video of that May 2020 encounter contradicts the core claim in Cooper’s lawsuit of her being a damsel in distress stressed by the aggressive bird watcher.
That video clearly shows Amy Cooper as the aggressor not the aggrieved.
The video shows Cooper rushed the bird watcher and confronted him with a demand that he stop his cellphone video of her deliberate defiance of the dog leash regulation.
When the bird watcher calmly rejected Cooper’s demand to stop recording, she threatened him with a declaration of her intent to call police and report that “an African American man is threatening my life.”
Seconds after Cooper’s declaration to the bird watcher she did call police. She did falsely tell police about threats to her and her dog from an “African American man.” During that call, Cooper even uttered a hysterical plea to send police “immediately!”
Cooper filed her lawsuit on the one-year anniversary of her Central Park infamy.
Cooper’s lawsuit contends her former employer – Franklin Templeton – acted improperly. Templeton failed to “fairly investigate” the incident before Cooper’s discharge, the lawsuit asserts.
The lawsuit pretends that Cooper’s videoed actions, coupled with her subsequent public admissions of wrongdoing, were not sufficient evidence for Templeton to find misconduct unacceptable from an employee…especially an employee with a management position.
No surprise, Cooper’s lawsuit fails to reference critical facts like her arrest for filing that false report and her prosecution for that false report. The lawsuit does acknowledge Cooper failed to follow the leash regulation.
Cooper’s prosecution resulted in a wrist-slap that required her participation in some education/therapy sessions. Upon completion of those sessions, prosecutors dropped the false report charge against her earlier this year.
Cooper avoided a trial and possible incarceration if convicted largely because the bird watcher did not want her to suffer further through prosecution to the fullest.
Amy Cooper received privileged breaks during her trip through the justice system that non-whites routinely don’t receive.
Consider the case of another New York City resident, Kalief Browder, falsely arrested for theft of a backpack. Browder spent three years in the hell of Rikers Island prison awaiting trial. During Browder’s detention, guards and inmates brutalized him. Browder committed suicide months after his release when prosecutors finally dropped the false theft charge.
Browder languished on Rikers Island so long primarily because NYC prosecutors kept postponing his case. Unlike Browder’s case, NYC prosecutors fast-tracked Amy Cooper’s case.
The differences in how NYC prosecutors handled the cases of Browder and Cooper is more confirmation of odious disparities embedded in the justice system.
The strongest evidence listed in the lawsuit to support Cooper’s claim of the bird watcher’s ‘history of aggression’ against dog walkers is a person with a similar rouge mindset and sense of entitlement as Cooper.
Like Cooper, this person held disdain for following the Ramble leash regulation. And, like Cooper, this person resented criticism for failure to follow that park regulation.
Cooper’s Exhibit A evidence against the bird watcher is a person who wrote a letter to a reporter defending Cooper. The letter writer stated the bird watcher had confronted him about the writer’s failure to follow leash rules. This letter writer proclaimed his “breaking the rules” did not give the bird watcher the “authority to accost people” for failure to follow leash rules.
While Cooper’s lawsuit fails to present compelling proof of discriminatory discharge, it does prove two disturbing facts.
Cooper’s public apologies for her May 2020 misconduct and her professions of learning from the incident were insincere given the disingenuous assertions in her lawsuit.
And Cooper’s therapy sessions had little impact on lessening her warped sense of entitlement.