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Seriously, you don’t just casually do what she did on a whim. She’s clearly done shit like that and gotten away with it before.
She avoided criminal charges for going to therapy, ffs.
I mean, that’s how it should be. For most offenses for everyone. Our justice system should be about rehabilitation, not revenge.
Granted, I’m sure her therapy classes were a sham, but we should be pushing for proper options more akin to that rather than hoping everyone suffers through the same terrible bullshit our system puts on minorities.
The entire point of equality isn’t to kick everyone down to the same miserable level. It’s to elevate everyone to the same level of privilege and safety that only some experience.
I don't disagree it should be about rehab, but humans don't always respond to just positive or critical feedback, sometimes you need a negative deterrent. It feels WAY too light given that if he didn't record her and she was believed, his life would be ruined. But she got caught and no repercussions. That doesn't quite balance in my book. We don't need an eye for an eye, but you try and ruin someone's life, you deserve some real punishment.
>The entire point of equality isn’t to kick everyone down to the same miserable level. It’s to elevate everyone to the same level of privilege and safety that only some experience.
That's what it should mean but that's not what happening.
School classes are being dumbed down to the level that those who don't want to learn and don't care to better themselves operate at.
School systems are doing away with college level programs for children with superior learning abilities because "it's not fair" to the other kids.
There's no more 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. No more winners or losers. Everyone gets a ribbon. Competition is a good thing. When nobody wants to strive to do better they'll just continue to regress.
Businesses are being forced to pay people that same even though Bob does 5 times the amount of work as Jane and peter for the same position in the company.
Colleges have had to dumb down the curriculum because 10% of the students were pushed through high school and can barely read or write.
The list just goes on and on.
also FTR i don't think it's necessarily just the victim being "nice"
it's a shitty process to be embroiled in a court case, and a lot of the time, crime victims get worn down and end up being willing to drop charges so that it can just all be over and they don't have to keep re-living and focusing on that event.
As a white woman in her mid forties I can confirm.
(I would be the best drug mule ever because everyone trusts me. Then again, I would never do that.)
Edit:
On the other side I read somewhere on Reddit a commenter stating that 'white women are evil'. That made me kinda sad. I tried to tell her how nice I am but I don't think she bought it.
They did make that movie where Clint Eastwood played an old white man delivering drugs for the Cartel and no one batted an eye cause he was a sweet old white man. (He eventually got caught) lol
Based on a true story
It made me sad because I guess this person must have had a lot of negative experience with white women.
It was also interesting to be negatively stereotyped due to my race, because that has never happened to me before. And it felt frustrating.
And I realized that for a lot of people this happens all the time, not only on Reddit but every where, all the time. And it has some very real consequences, where as for me there were none.
That is an amazing life lesson you were able to receive without a really bad, negative situation. The best thing you can do is learn from it, which it seems you did.
Maybe having those frustrating, uncomfortable situations will make more people think about what it is like daily for POC. To be judged immediately based on uncontrollable elements, and not on the content of your character. I’m glad you gained perspective from this
>It was also interesting to be negatively stereotyped due to my race, because that has never happened to me before. And it felt frustrating.
I'm not trying to be mean and I absolutely understand the point you're making, but this part was extra hilarious to me
Hey dude. Sorry to hear about this.
We're all people and equally capable of good, evil, and everywhere in between - regardless of race, sex, or other characteristics.
You seem like a genuinely kind and self reflective/aware person who strives to improve their perspective and understanding.
We need more people like you.
For the kindness you bring into the world, and just who you are, I hope you have an amazing day 🙂
"It made me sad because I guess this person must have had a lot of negative experience with white women. It was also interesting to be negatively stereotyped due to my race, because that has never happened to me before. And it felt frustrating."
Yeah it's not a fun experience is it?! Now you have a glimpse into what black and other minorities feel but especially black people. Life's hard but it's even harder when you have the racial element to deal with. And now you sort of know how it feels.
He was also EXTRAORDINARILY PATIENT with her and the media and recommended that she be able to go on with her life, learn from her mistakes, etc. He’s a bigger man that I.
This. Glad someone bothered to pay attention and comment. The victim did not want to press charges. He was exceedingly forgiving, especially in light of the cultural environment at the time.
Victims getting to press or drop charges in a criminal investigation is a myth. If you read the article its Manhattan District Attorney's Office which dropped the charges, only the prosecuting authority has that power, the legal "victim" in a crime is the state as its their law which was broken.
You are mischaracterizing reality and my comment. The DA chooses whether or not to charge based on the likelihood of mounting a successful case against the defendant. In an overwhelming majority of cases, the most compelling evidence is presence and, when possible, testimony of a “victim.” In this case, defendant’s actions harmed an individual only. So while she may have broken a law, without the participation of that harmed party, the case against her is weak, at best. DA cannot force the harmed party to participate in the prosecution. He openly expressed that he did not want the incident to define his existence in the public view, he did not want to participate in her prosecution, and he did not want her publicly flogged for her actions. So, yeah, a DA determined a case wouldn’t be fruitful. While your comment is *technically* correct, it ignores context and quite frankly is rather nozzle-ish.
As long as she had to do some sensitivitiy training and whatever else a court might recommend for something like this I'm fine with it, she was also publicly shamed and lost her job. If she ever did something similar again she'd get the book thrown at her.
Not when you look like her! She’s even trying to sue her employer for firing her. The entitlement of some people. She really should have gone to prison.
> “The charges were later dropped, given her lack of criminal background”
On the one hand, this is how everyone should be treated.
On the other hand, it's how **everyone** should be treated.
If perhaps the people who are denying there's anything wrong faced the same justice system as poc then we might actually see some improvement in the justice system in this country. I'm just not sure that two wrongs make a right though.
>”Given the issues at hand and Ms. Cooper's lack of criminal background, we offered her, consistent with our position on many misdemeanor cases involving a first arrest, an alternative, restorative justice resolution," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi told a Manhattan judge
> The Manhattan District Attorney's Office says it dropped the charge after Amy Cooper completed five restorative justice sessions.
It isn't like she suffered zero consequences.
The case is a bit more complicated than it was originally reported, the dude had dog treats and lured her dog to him while admittedly saying he was going to do something to the dog that she wouldn’t like. There was an ongoing feud between dog walkers not using leashes and bird watchers in the park.
Too many people are incarcerated in this country as it is. This woman's reputation is ruined; I'd take a few days in jail over internet immortality. Plus she went back to Canada, let them deal with her.
What does a bird-watcher show look like? Is it him pointing out and talking about cool bird facts? Would it be a narration thing more like Attenborough or get close to them like Irwin? Never been into bird watching so I’m just curious. Either way I’m glad he gets to shine on a hobby he loves.
EDIT: Thanks for the replies. Sounds awesome
Probably traveling to find birds on a list and talking about them. That's pretty much what birdwatching is. There's a website called ebird where people report sightings and other birdwatchers come and look for the birds. Birdwatching is a lot like hide and seek but with birds.
*from the article: "Whether braving stormy seas in Alaska for puffins, trekking into rainforests in Puerto Rico for parrots, or scaling a bridge in Manhattan for a peregrine falcon, he does whatever it takes to learn about these extraordinary feathered creatures and show us the remarkable world in the sky above," the network said in a [statement]
It's not just bird watching though, bird watchers will file their reports and counts with the Audubon Society, which will use it to track migration data and identify species at risk. It's incredibly important, the health of bird populations can reveal a lot about the state of the environment. Unsurprisingly it's not great right now, and thanks to bird watchers we have some data to help sound the alarm.
Some examples of how bird watchers help:
* Low populations of birds could indicate a problem with food sources and water quality/availability, or indicate the presence of a toxin (like DDT and its effect on Eagles).
* Changes to migration patterns tells us a lot about climate change.
* The disappearance or reduction in numbers of a bird species may indicate a loss of habitat.
* Predator bird disappearances can indicate at risk populations of fish, mice and other food sources.
Understanding this information can help us to protect those bird species and in the process the entire ecology that sustains them - and us. Birds are literally all canaries in this coal mine.
EDIT: People seem interested in this. They might want to check out this beginner's guide to bird watching. There's no definite guide, every region is different, but this is a good resource to get started: [https://www.audubon.org/birding/how-to-start-birding](https://www.audubon.org/birding/how-to-start-birding)
I'm far from an expert myself but I keep a winter feeder and have binoculars handy through the summer months, as well as a pocket guide. I've seen some interesting things over the years - including a golden eagle big enough to carry away my dog, some cool owls, a Cedar Waxwing and an American Goldfinch that is really rare for my area.
This makes it sound super badass which I guess at times it can be. It sounds like river monsters but with birds... I really hope it is in that over the top dramatic style.
Like all things nearly, I'd watch birdwatching (is that still birdwatching ..?) highlights. The best bits; nine dart finishes, 147 breaks, World Cup final, F1 highlights etc
Just the highlights. Stuff that waiting around in all weathers nonsense, cold and hungry and no toilets.
My wife has an app on her phone that's basically Shazam for birdcalls. It's pretty nifty, she can usually ID the birdcall and then find the bird in a nearby tree and quickly find unusual species for our area.
Here's a video of Christian Cooper birding in central park. His enthusiasm is so endearingly nerdy and sweet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qd2XyGFTzk
Just shows how important it is these days to record things.
> The Manhattan District Attorney's Office says it dropped the charge after Amy Cooper completed five restorative justice sessions.
He recorded her, she had to do some Karen management classes and he got a TV show.
Had he not recorded her, the police probably would have shown up, assaulted him for resisting arrest or some bs, charged him and ruined his life.
Yeh, ‘restorative justice sessions’ is such bs. Let’s just call it what it is: she was told to stop being a big Karen for five hours and she probably learned nothing. I can guarantee that to this day she still thinks she was the victim, even though she tried to ruin someone’s life for asking her to put her dog on its lead.
White person - ‘lack of a criminal background’
USA justice - nah, let them go. It won’t happen again, right?
Black person - ‘lack of a criminal background’
USA justice - gotta charge ‘em, don’t want this sort of behaviour on the streets now…
Nah. Restorative justice directly involves the victim in the case. So she had five sessions where the victim could tell her how her actions affected him and they made him feel.
Or you know, the off chance that they decide to kill him for resisting a wrongful arrest. Just depends what cop is on and if s/he has the brain cells/training to deal with the situation.
Not excusing the behavior of course, but does anyone know what happened before he started recording?
I’d guess he asked her to leash her dog or something trivial & she blew up…?
If I remember right:
-Woman had dog off leash in an area it was supposed to leashed.
-Guy tells her it can't be off leash here.
-She says the dog area's closed because of covid and the dog needs exercise. This is the only place available.
-They go back and forth.
-He says something along the lines of, "If you don't leash your dog then I'm going to give it some treats from my pocket. And you're not going to like these treats."
-She spazzes out and calls the cops.
Edit: My wording was off.
-Christian then said, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it," and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.
You two absolute geniuses are responding to someone who began their post with
>If I remember
And are acting like it's what actually happened.
Is this normal for you?
From my recollection, that is what happened. He stated later that people generally ignore requests to put their dog on a leash, but once you start offering the dog treats, they don't like that, random stranger giving their dog food, and will put the dog on a leash to prevent it from coming to you for said treat.
Which honestly seems like a great tactic.
Agreed. I can see how this is getting misconstrued. He uses a great tactic to get the desired response. He is a bird watching after all.
Unfortunately he is little bit of a fucker and he is aware of the implications of what he is saying. So they're both wrong.
And I asked if "threatening to offer food to a dog and that the owner "won't like that"" is an implied threat.
I never said "the owner made a threat to poison"; I asked whether the scenario offered by the other guy would be considered a threat.
Of course, you already know this, since you're such a genius. But, then again, a genius wouldn't accuse another genius of accepting something as the facts automatically when the other genius never claimed something to be a fact. Right, genius?
stop using that word genius so much. people might think you’re crazy or something. don’t call the cops on me though. unlike that black guy, i don’t want that to happen to me.
Nice job totally glossing over the part where she says "I'll call the cops, I'll tell them there is a black man threating my life" which is the whole reason this thing got as big as it did. She used the white damsel in distress trope that has gotten black men killed and she did it on camera for everyone to see. That is why she is such a villain. Hopefully she was able to reflect on what she did in her community service and therapy and understands why it was so horrible. It would be really sad if she came away thinking she was an innocent person who got baited into a trap by a black guy that hates white people as another post here implies
he is a bird watcher. she had no leash on dog. he asked her to leash the dog. she refused with a lame excuse. he said i have dog treats (a birders classic line to get dogs on leash). she flipped out at that. he started recording.
Thats the dumb bitch almost killing her dog by choking it while making her scene, watch the video and hear it whimpering and coughing after finally twisting free. She got 0 sympathy from me regardless of what he did.
“Hello, I’m Christian Cooper, and today we’re at a power plant outside Cerulean city. We’re hoping to catch a glimpse of an extremely rare bird, Zapdos!”
Glad to hear something positive came out of that Karen moment. He spoke well in the interviews following the incident so I’m not surprised he got a show.
Ooh that’s amazing. I was hoping we’d see more of him. Also the weird people in the comments, he filmed her to protect himself. Which was a good thing he did, as she acted like he was doing something to her. He dropped any charges against her and even said he thought everyone should stop. He forgave her. She got her dog back etc etc… she was in the wrong for letting her dog off leash and also being a freaking brat and then also calling the police and acting like he was hurting her… which if the cops rolled up could have ended with him being harmed.
The thing is he admitted to behavior which most people would agree is reasonably interpreted as a threat against her dog:
> By his own account, Christian then said, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it," and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.[3] Amy then yelled, "Don't you touch my dog!"[3] Christian then began recording on his cellphone.[1][3]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_birdwatching_incident
Yeah I think that woman went way too far and was in the wrong to begin with.
But if someone was saying shit like that and I understood it as my dog potentially getting poisoned I would flip out too.
Absolutely. They were both wrong, she started it by being a twit and not having her pup on leash, he made it much worse by being (at best) really weird about it with vague threats which I thought made the call to the cops a valid response. She then showed absolutely abhorrent behavior in weaponizing her privilege against him (also in disregarding her dog’s well-being but that’s *almost* empathizable considering the stress).
If a man tries to take your dog or says you’re not going to like what he’s going to do and you’re alone in a park with him, it’s reasonable to call the cops. It only makes you a garbage person if you then weaponize his race while you’re at it.
Wrongfully accused of *what though?*
Did someone hear him say Jizz and think he was being a creep? Nah man that's just recognisable bird movement!
I remember seeing a video a few years ago of a woman approaching a black man in what could have been central park and just yelling at him to leave or she would call the cops, but the video includes her seeing him and coming over to do that. I wonder if it was the same one.
From memory he was telling her to put her dog on a lead (which i believe is required in that area of the park) as there were rare birds/hatchlings around. He tried to entice the dog over with a biscuit, which is a bit weird, but i think he didn't it only with the intention of holding-hands it until she put it on a lead;and then she freaked out. I do get her freaking out, but she comes across kinda racist...
That's a veiled threat, let's be honest. A stranger that has an issue with your dog telling you it won't like the treats they're about to give it? Fuck that.
She still tried to sick the cops on him for being black and lied about being afraid for her life. So fuck her, she should have left the area. But don't offer my dog unknown treats if I don't know you.
It’s kind of crazy how hard it is to find information from his original post. This is from the only article I could find that even quoted this portion of his post.
>However, Amy, clearly didn’t care, which caused Christian to respond, “Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,” according to his Facebook post.
>Then Christian says he pulled out a dog treat and called after Amy’s dog.
That is what he wrote in his post to describe the events leading up to the video.
I do think that she acted excessively crazy, and I’m not justifying her actions. But I don’t think there is any other way to take “you’re not going to like it” as anything but a threat. But for some reason that initial post was left off of all of the coverage of this situation and now it is very difficult to find any information about it.
That is for sure a veiled threat (at least from the way it's written) so i understand her worry i suppose. Stillan ass for not leasing her dog and being a bigot it seems as well though!
Yeah that sounds scary and I would be afraid for my pet, but I don't think I would react that way immediately going to threats and going to an authority.
Yeah, my partner filled me in.
He watches birds and does not like unleashed dogs running the birds off so he started giving the dogs treats knowing that pet owners may not like that.
He does this and is confronted by the with her asking him not to and she doesn't know if it could be poison or not, and he answered something like "You shouldn't leave your dog unleashed and open to the possibility of being poisoned" which is NOT reassuring.
Aparrently he came off as sexist and condescending and shitty about it, then she got racist about it. So that sucks.
I'm torn between wanting to support him by watching the show but wanting to NOT support Disney+ by getting a subscription. I've never done a free trial of Disney+ before; maybe I can time a free trial with its release.
His behavior technically matches the “Karen” archetype more. He saw himself as an enforcer of park rules prohibiting unleashed dogs, and he admitted that he would regularly confront people with unleashed dogs in the park. He carried treats with him specifically for this purpose.
Funny, cause while I agree with your points on her, this guy seeing himself as the last line of defense for dog rules prior to 9am comes across as ultra Karen to me.
Whelp, what we gonna do cept accept a small annoyance here and there
[https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1/posts/10158742137255229](https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1/posts/10158742137255229)
>ME: All you have to do is take him to the other side of the drive, outside the Ramble, and you can let him run off leash all you want.
>
>HER: It's too dangerous.
>
>ME: Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it.
>
>HER: What's that?
>
>ME (to the dog): Come here, puppy!
>
>HER: He won't come to you.
>
>ME: We'll see about that...
>
>I pull out the dog treats I carry for just for such intransigence. I didn't even get a chance to toss any treats to the pooch before Karen scrambled to grab the dog.
>
>HER: DON'T YOU TOUCH MY DOG!!!!!
Sounds an awful lot like he was threatening to hurt her dog.
I mean, she was in the wrong bringing it there and without a leash to boot, but imagine her situation. You're a woman alone in a park and a big dude tells you that he's going to "do something you won't like."
Which is give it a bunch of treats. Like too many dog treats. I don’t get how people can be like I can do whatever I want including continuing to do so after being asked to stop but if anyone even suggests they are going to do something I don’t like it’s a direct threat to my life or in this case my dogs life. Because a big man can do anything.
Okay so she’s doing something wrong. Against the park rules. It interferes with the reason he is there. He asks her to stop. She doesn’t really care because she wants to do what she wants. But then he says he’s going to do something she doesn’t like and she gets the benefit of the doubt because you don’t know the severity of his hypothetical transgression? I love how people can be entitled and fearful at the same time.
Why are there people trying to defend Amy Coopers actions? Where she really stepped over the line is when she calls 911 saying "I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.” What response was she trying to elicit from the police when she said this blatant lie to the dispatcher?
Was Christian Coopers actions towards Amy Cooper aggressive? Yes they were. Mr. Cooper was sick of people's shit. However, that doesn't warrant cops to come with guns drawn on you. Which is exactly what Miss Cooper was trying to do to Mr. Cooper.
This..
She was being disrespectful when she didn't her dog on the leash after being asked to and informed that it was required.
He then plays a shit game by making it sound like he's going to do something to her dog.
And then she retaliates by threatening him with the prospect of police brutality. (That's how I understand the "I'm going to tell them a black man is threatening me" thing. Like "Remember what happened to George Floyd.")
It was a sad and stupid escalation of a shitty situation, both sides played a role in it, maybe hers was bigger, maybe it wasn't, but the point is it didn't warrant a life-destroying witch hunt against her.
Honestly, I wanna be on his side... she sucks. But I don't really know what occurred here before the video cuts in. And when someone is actively baiting a pet away from it's owner with food, that's going too far. It's not unthinkable that someone could be poisoning your dog.
Yup. She wouldn’t have been in that position if she weren’t acting like basic af rules don’t apply to her. That was his point.
Leash your damn dog. And don’t get into a toddler level debate about whether you will or won’t.
>And since when is pulling out treats a threat?
It isn't. But he said "I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it", and started calling the dog. I hope you see how that would have sounded like a threat to her. Clearly he wasn't going to do anything to the dog, but how could she know?
>He did. Several times. She wanted to have a debate.
And her not listening to him gives him exactly zero permission to take any kind of action. That's what people invented the police for.
It seems to me like every criticism of his actions is getting construed as saying what she did was fine. The point is that the story isn't entirely black and white, and that we should maybe not go on fucking witch hunts and doxx people we've never seen before based on videos we watched on the internet. This woman did nothing more than act like a jerk towards a stranger in the park, and she lost her job and received death threats over it. Why wasn't it enough that the police gave her a slap on the wrist for an unnecessary call and false information?
You're right. It's not okay that she didn't have her dog on a leash.
The thing is, he made it sound like he was going to hurt the dog. And that wasn't okay either. It scared her and then made her angry and then she did the next thing in this whole story that was not okay.
So, yeah, it's her who was in the wrong to begin with. But he clearly helped escalate the situation, and that bit has been ignored by almost everyone.
edit:
look, let's say she was stupid to misinterpret his words and actions as a threat - his next step was to take out his phone and record her. At that point he must have known she was getting irrational, and that recording her would likely escalate the situation further. Still not BLAMING him, okay? She started it. She overreacted. But he saw the whole trainwreck coming and not only decided against deescalating but helped it along, and now suddenly we have a villain and a hero where it really was just a dude deciding to butt heads with a willfully ignorant woman.
He explicitly said *"Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it."*
I believe the phrase is "fuck around and find out"
Highly recommend this article and podcast (spoiler alert: they're both kind of terrible)
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-central-park?s=r
Good for this guy. What an awful incident. I hate so much that this happened in our society. I'm not at all interested in birds ( r/BirdsArentReal right?) but I hope he finds success.
My reaction was immediately:
Good! Great for him!
Dude's got an opportunity of a lifetime out of a bad experience, I think this is absolutely worth celebrating!
But he was threatening her dog, by his own admission:
> Christian asked Amy to leash her dog, and she allegedly refused. By his own account, Christian then said, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it," and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.[3]
I sincerely hope, for you and your dogs’ sake, that if an angry stranger starts to lure your dog and says “you won’t like it” that you take that seriously and not assume it is a harmless treat.
As a counter to this statement: I feel anyone who sees this comment should know This podcast is well known for missing facts, having a biased host, and a few times outright lying.
Firstly it was a guest who did the story. Second the things they bring up have records and can be backed but you go ahead and make those claims without listening to it.
Seconded. This story is not how people have had it portrayed to them.
To those downvoting without having any idea why, maybe you check out the podcast?
I'm not defending everything Amy Cooper did, but this guy wasn't wrongfully accused.
> So when I encounter viral moments like the one involving the Coopers — the angel and the villain so neatly laid out, each person frozen in roles in a grand ideological narrative — my first instinct is to ask: What context am I missing here?
> Here the answer was: an awful lot.
> For starters, there was the Facebook post that Christian shared when he uploaded the original video, which his sister posted on Twitter in the hours after the encounter. In the post, Christian recorded his contemporaneous account of what happened in the moments before the camera started rolling. “Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,” Christian recounted himself saying to Amy. He also shared that he’d pulled out “the dog treats I carry for just for [sic] such intransigence.”
> I had read an embarrassing number of stories and social media takes about this brief conflict. Not a single one of them had mentioned this public Facebook post.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-central-park?s=r
Well it looks like he made a veiled threat to feed her dog poisoned treats if she didn't put it on a leash, which doesn't exactly make him look like the greatest person either.
You're immediately making an awfully negative assumption about a black man who's displayed no violent or sociopathic tendencies... Hmmmm, I wonder if making negative assumptions like this is the entire fucking issue?
Well that's awesome. And as it should be. Good on this dude...I hope he has a decent TV personality so he can take it as far as he wants to.
Disappointed to hear the woman had the charges dropped, but I'm not terribly surprised given who it was. But, I'll still take this as a "net uplifting".
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“The charges were later dropped, given her lack of criminal background” I mean, aren’t charges how you develop a criminal background?
You can't get a job or go to jail without experience!
hahah
But you don't get it, she was a white middle aged woman, she can't do any wrong!!!1!! /s
If I remember correctly, the bird watcher felt pity for her and asked for her to not be prosecuted
Wow, what a nice guy. Way nicer than she deserves honestly
Seriously, you don’t just casually do what she did on a whim. She’s clearly done shit like that and gotten away with it before. She avoided criminal charges for going to therapy, ffs.
I mean, that’s how it should be. For most offenses for everyone. Our justice system should be about rehabilitation, not revenge. Granted, I’m sure her therapy classes were a sham, but we should be pushing for proper options more akin to that rather than hoping everyone suffers through the same terrible bullshit our system puts on minorities. The entire point of equality isn’t to kick everyone down to the same miserable level. It’s to elevate everyone to the same level of privilege and safety that only some experience.
I don't disagree it should be about rehab, but humans don't always respond to just positive or critical feedback, sometimes you need a negative deterrent. It feels WAY too light given that if he didn't record her and she was believed, his life would be ruined. But she got caught and no repercussions. That doesn't quite balance in my book. We don't need an eye for an eye, but you try and ruin someone's life, you deserve some real punishment.
She lost her job, so there’s that.
And you know right now she's sitting there reading this going well ain't that some affirmative action bulshit
What you're describing is equity! Something we should all strive for.
>The entire point of equality isn’t to kick everyone down to the same miserable level. It’s to elevate everyone to the same level of privilege and safety that only some experience. That's what it should mean but that's not what happening. School classes are being dumbed down to the level that those who don't want to learn and don't care to better themselves operate at. School systems are doing away with college level programs for children with superior learning abilities because "it's not fair" to the other kids. There's no more 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. No more winners or losers. Everyone gets a ribbon. Competition is a good thing. When nobody wants to strive to do better they'll just continue to regress. Businesses are being forced to pay people that same even though Bob does 5 times the amount of work as Jane and peter for the same position in the company. Colleges have had to dumb down the curriculum because 10% of the students were pushed through high school and can barely read or write. The list just goes on and on.
also FTR i don't think it's necessarily just the victim being "nice" it's a shitty process to be embroiled in a court case, and a lot of the time, crime victims get worn down and end up being willing to drop charges so that it can just all be over and they don't have to keep re-living and focusing on that event.
She tried to get the cops to execute him, dudes a fool.
According to the article, charges were dropped after she competed 5 restorative social programs, not because Christian asked them to drop them.
thanks for clarifying. It is true that he opted not to press charges himself, but he’s not responsible for the misdemeanor being dropped
As a white woman in her mid forties I can confirm. (I would be the best drug mule ever because everyone trusts me. Then again, I would never do that.) Edit: On the other side I read somewhere on Reddit a commenter stating that 'white women are evil'. That made me kinda sad. I tried to tell her how nice I am but I don't think she bought it.
They did make that movie where Clint Eastwood played an old white man delivering drugs for the Cartel and no one batted an eye cause he was a sweet old white man. (He eventually got caught) lol Based on a true story
I mean some are evil, but most are nice and accepting so don't let it get you down.
It made me sad because I guess this person must have had a lot of negative experience with white women. It was also interesting to be negatively stereotyped due to my race, because that has never happened to me before. And it felt frustrating. And I realized that for a lot of people this happens all the time, not only on Reddit but every where, all the time. And it has some very real consequences, where as for me there were none.
That is an amazing life lesson you were able to receive without a really bad, negative situation. The best thing you can do is learn from it, which it seems you did. Maybe having those frustrating, uncomfortable situations will make more people think about what it is like daily for POC. To be judged immediately based on uncontrollable elements, and not on the content of your character. I’m glad you gained perspective from this
Exactly. An uncomfortable life lesson. It was really eye opening.
I got bad news, no one anywhere is judged on the content of their charcter.
>It was also interesting to be negatively stereotyped due to my race, because that has never happened to me before. And it felt frustrating. I'm not trying to be mean and I absolutely understand the point you're making, but this part was extra hilarious to me
You're welcome to laugh. The sentence really pinpoints my privilege.
Hey dude. Sorry to hear about this. We're all people and equally capable of good, evil, and everywhere in between - regardless of race, sex, or other characteristics. You seem like a genuinely kind and self reflective/aware person who strives to improve their perspective and understanding. We need more people like you. For the kindness you bring into the world, and just who you are, I hope you have an amazing day 🙂
"It made me sad because I guess this person must have had a lot of negative experience with white women. It was also interesting to be negatively stereotyped due to my race, because that has never happened to me before. And it felt frustrating." Yeah it's not a fun experience is it?! Now you have a glimpse into what black and other minorities feel but especially black people. Life's hard but it's even harder when you have the racial element to deal with. And now you sort of know how it feels.
Mule them drugs.
That's why you have to yell repeatedly at her how nice you are!
He was also EXTRAORDINARILY PATIENT with her and the media and recommended that she be able to go on with her life, learn from her mistakes, etc. He’s a bigger man that I.
This. Glad someone bothered to pay attention and comment. The victim did not want to press charges. He was exceedingly forgiving, especially in light of the cultural environment at the time.
Victims getting to press or drop charges in a criminal investigation is a myth. If you read the article its Manhattan District Attorney's Office which dropped the charges, only the prosecuting authority has that power, the legal "victim" in a crime is the state as its their law which was broken.
You are mischaracterizing reality and my comment. The DA chooses whether or not to charge based on the likelihood of mounting a successful case against the defendant. In an overwhelming majority of cases, the most compelling evidence is presence and, when possible, testimony of a “victim.” In this case, defendant’s actions harmed an individual only. So while she may have broken a law, without the participation of that harmed party, the case against her is weak, at best. DA cannot force the harmed party to participate in the prosecution. He openly expressed that he did not want the incident to define his existence in the public view, he did not want to participate in her prosecution, and he did not want her publicly flogged for her actions. So, yeah, a DA determined a case wouldn’t be fruitful. While your comment is *technically* correct, it ignores context and quite frankly is rather nozzle-ish.
As long as she had to do some sensitivitiy training and whatever else a court might recommend for something like this I'm fine with it, she was also publicly shamed and lost her job. If she ever did something similar again she'd get the book thrown at her.
Not when you look like her! She’s even trying to sue her employer for firing her. The entitlement of some people. She really should have gone to prison.
Lol. Way to seal the deal on ever getting a stable job again.
If only they gave that kinda decision for POC
Right?
Classic example of “white woman tears” sadly
> “The charges were later dropped, given her lack of criminal background” On the one hand, this is how everyone should be treated. On the other hand, it's how **everyone** should be treated. If perhaps the people who are denying there's anything wrong faced the same justice system as poc then we might actually see some improvement in the justice system in this country. I'm just not sure that two wrongs make a right though.
>”Given the issues at hand and Ms. Cooper's lack of criminal background, we offered her, consistent with our position on many misdemeanor cases involving a first arrest, an alternative, restorative justice resolution," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi told a Manhattan judge
> The Manhattan District Attorney's Office says it dropped the charge after Amy Cooper completed five restorative justice sessions. It isn't like she suffered zero consequences.
Having to sit through an anti-karen class isn't really consequences.
I just want to know if there were any tests at the end. Like what's the point of the class if you fail.
The test would ultimately just be whether you're able to fake having learned your lesson, though.
You may not have heard but NYC prosecutors aren’t really in the habit of prosecuting
Sounds about White.
More like 'given her lack of melanin'
She’s white so, you know, multiple chances
The case is a bit more complicated than it was originally reported, the dude had dog treats and lured her dog to him while admittedly saying he was going to do something to the dog that she wouldn’t like. There was an ongoing feud between dog walkers not using leashes and bird watchers in the park.
Too many people are incarcerated in this country as it is. This woman's reputation is ruined; I'd take a few days in jail over internet immortality. Plus she went back to Canada, let them deal with her.
What does a bird-watcher show look like? Is it him pointing out and talking about cool bird facts? Would it be a narration thing more like Attenborough or get close to them like Irwin? Never been into bird watching so I’m just curious. Either way I’m glad he gets to shine on a hobby he loves. EDIT: Thanks for the replies. Sounds awesome
Probably traveling to find birds on a list and talking about them. That's pretty much what birdwatching is. There's a website called ebird where people report sightings and other birdwatchers come and look for the birds. Birdwatching is a lot like hide and seek but with birds. *from the article: "Whether braving stormy seas in Alaska for puffins, trekking into rainforests in Puerto Rico for parrots, or scaling a bridge in Manhattan for a peregrine falcon, he does whatever it takes to learn about these extraordinary feathered creatures and show us the remarkable world in the sky above," the network said in a [statement]
It's not just bird watching though, bird watchers will file their reports and counts with the Audubon Society, which will use it to track migration data and identify species at risk. It's incredibly important, the health of bird populations can reveal a lot about the state of the environment. Unsurprisingly it's not great right now, and thanks to bird watchers we have some data to help sound the alarm. Some examples of how bird watchers help: * Low populations of birds could indicate a problem with food sources and water quality/availability, or indicate the presence of a toxin (like DDT and its effect on Eagles). * Changes to migration patterns tells us a lot about climate change. * The disappearance or reduction in numbers of a bird species may indicate a loss of habitat. * Predator bird disappearances can indicate at risk populations of fish, mice and other food sources. Understanding this information can help us to protect those bird species and in the process the entire ecology that sustains them - and us. Birds are literally all canaries in this coal mine. EDIT: People seem interested in this. They might want to check out this beginner's guide to bird watching. There's no definite guide, every region is different, but this is a good resource to get started: [https://www.audubon.org/birding/how-to-start-birding](https://www.audubon.org/birding/how-to-start-birding) I'm far from an expert myself but I keep a winter feeder and have binoculars handy through the summer months, as well as a pocket guide. I've seen some interesting things over the years - including a golden eagle big enough to carry away my dog, some cool owls, a Cedar Waxwing and an American Goldfinch that is really rare for my area.
There are hundreds of graduate theses being published using eBird data, collected from random citizens who enjoy looking at cool birds. It’s crazy
This makes it sound super badass which I guess at times it can be. It sounds like river monsters but with birds... I really hope it is in that over the top dramatic style.
Like all things nearly, I'd watch birdwatching (is that still birdwatching ..?) highlights. The best bits; nine dart finishes, 147 breaks, World Cup final, F1 highlights etc Just the highlights. Stuff that waiting around in all weathers nonsense, cold and hungry and no toilets.
You must HATE youtube then, haha.
My wife has an app on her phone that's basically Shazam for birdcalls. It's pretty nifty, she can usually ID the birdcall and then find the bird in a nearby tree and quickly find unusual species for our area.
That is amazing.
Probably like "the big year" with less plot and more birds.
A more focused version of what David Attenborough does…
He could be the Jeremy Wade of the skies.
Here's a video of Christian Cooper birding in central park. His enthusiasm is so endearingly nerdy and sweet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qd2XyGFTzk
Pokemon but with glass jars
You know this man is a serious birdwatcher rocking Swarovski binoculars.
Just shows how important it is these days to record things. > The Manhattan District Attorney's Office says it dropped the charge after Amy Cooper completed five restorative justice sessions. He recorded her, she had to do some Karen management classes and he got a TV show. Had he not recorded her, the police probably would have shown up, assaulted him for resisting arrest or some bs, charged him and ruined his life.
"Karen management classes" wow this is gold.
Yeh, ‘restorative justice sessions’ is such bs. Let’s just call it what it is: she was told to stop being a big Karen for five hours and she probably learned nothing. I can guarantee that to this day she still thinks she was the victim, even though she tried to ruin someone’s life for asking her to put her dog on its lead.
White person - ‘lack of a criminal background’ USA justice - nah, let them go. It won’t happen again, right? Black person - ‘lack of a criminal background’ USA justice - gotta charge ‘em, don’t want this sort of behaviour on the streets now…
don't forget the "no known active warrants"
Nah. Restorative justice directly involves the victim in the case. So she had five sessions where the victim could tell her how her actions affected him and they made him feel.
…or could have killed him. Thank goodness he recorded that shit.
Or you know, the off chance that they decide to kill him for resisting a wrongful arrest. Just depends what cop is on and if s/he has the brain cells/training to deal with the situation.
Or shot him...
Or drop kicked him from behind while he was complying.
Ahh the good ol not broken US legal and policing systems. It makes me so sad to see how far or how bad things may have always been. :/
Nothing broken with the system, thats just how it is if you are black. - US legal and policing system, probably
Or choked him with a knee
I think about this dude and his birds every single day. I'll gladly watch
“Karen management classes” lol
They’d yelled “stop resisting” before they even get to him. Pigs. ACAB.
Link to the original video of the incident: https://youtu.be/aPvb_mszKew
Shot, she should be tried for animal abuse as well! The poor dog!
Yeah wtf, get that dog away from her
This needs to be higher up.
Not excusing the behavior of course, but does anyone know what happened before he started recording? I’d guess he asked her to leash her dog or something trivial & she blew up…?
If I remember right: -Woman had dog off leash in an area it was supposed to leashed. -Guy tells her it can't be off leash here. -She says the dog area's closed because of covid and the dog needs exercise. This is the only place available. -They go back and forth. -He says something along the lines of, "If you don't leash your dog then I'm going to give it some treats from my pocket. And you're not going to like these treats." -She spazzes out and calls the cops. Edit: My wording was off. -Christian then said, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it," and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.
Isn't that an implied threat of poison?
I updated my post with his exact words. It's not much better.
Thanks for asking this question. WTF does that mean
You two absolute geniuses are responding to someone who began their post with >If I remember And are acting like it's what actually happened. Is this normal for you?
From my recollection, that is what happened. He stated later that people generally ignore requests to put their dog on a leash, but once you start offering the dog treats, they don't like that, random stranger giving their dog food, and will put the dog on a leash to prevent it from coming to you for said treat. Which honestly seems like a great tactic.
Agreed. I can see how this is getting misconstrued. He uses a great tactic to get the desired response. He is a bird watching after all. Unfortunately he is little bit of a fucker and he is aware of the implications of what he is saying. So they're both wrong.
And I asked if "threatening to offer food to a dog and that the owner "won't like that"" is an implied threat. I never said "the owner made a threat to poison"; I asked whether the scenario offered by the other guy would be considered a threat. Of course, you already know this, since you're such a genius. But, then again, a genius wouldn't accuse another genius of accepting something as the facts automatically when the other genius never claimed something to be a fact. Right, genius?
stop using that word genius so much. people might think you’re crazy or something. don’t call the cops on me though. unlike that black guy, i don’t want that to happen to me.
Nice job totally glossing over the part where she says "I'll call the cops, I'll tell them there is a black man threating my life" which is the whole reason this thing got as big as it did. She used the white damsel in distress trope that has gotten black men killed and she did it on camera for everyone to see. That is why she is such a villain. Hopefully she was able to reflect on what she did in her community service and therapy and understands why it was so horrible. It would be really sad if she came away thinking she was an innocent person who got baited into a trap by a black guy that hates white people as another post here implies
he is a bird watcher. she had no leash on dog. he asked her to leash the dog. she refused with a lame excuse. he said i have dog treats (a birders classic line to get dogs on leash). she flipped out at that. he started recording.
The best revenge is success
I see he is well armed this time.
You didn’t think you were getting tickets, did you?
Bird watching ain't for sissies, holding up six pound binoculars for hours at a time is as Chad as it gets.
This is fucking amazing, I love this. So so happy :D
Thats the dumb bitch almost killing her dog by choking it while making her scene, watch the video and hear it whimpering and coughing after finally twisting free. She got 0 sympathy from me regardless of what he did.
This is great!
I can imagine the lady who called the cops on him trying to sue him for money when the show takes off.
“Hello, I’m Christian Cooper, and today we’re at a power plant outside Cerulean city. We’re hoping to catch a glimpse of an extremely rare bird, Zapdos!”
Awesome I’ll totally watch that
Glad to hear something positive came out of that Karen moment. He spoke well in the interviews following the incident so I’m not surprised he got a show.
This is adorable! I hope it’s a hit!
I cannot believe they did not call this show Birdman. What a lost opportunity.
Anyone else think this guy kind of looks like Idris Elba and Giancarlo Esposito’s love child?
Ooh that’s amazing. I was hoping we’d see more of him. Also the weird people in the comments, he filmed her to protect himself. Which was a good thing he did, as she acted like he was doing something to her. He dropped any charges against her and even said he thought everyone should stop. He forgave her. She got her dog back etc etc… she was in the wrong for letting her dog off leash and also being a freaking brat and then also calling the police and acting like he was hurting her… which if the cops rolled up could have ended with him being harmed.
The thing is he admitted to behavior which most people would agree is reasonably interpreted as a threat against her dog: > By his own account, Christian then said, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it," and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.[3] Amy then yelled, "Don't you touch my dog!"[3] Christian then began recording on his cellphone.[1][3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_birdwatching_incident
Yeah I think that woman went way too far and was in the wrong to begin with. But if someone was saying shit like that and I understood it as my dog potentially getting poisoned I would flip out too.
Absolutely. They were both wrong, she started it by being a twit and not having her pup on leash, he made it much worse by being (at best) really weird about it with vague threats which I thought made the call to the cops a valid response. She then showed absolutely abhorrent behavior in weaponizing her privilege against him (also in disregarding her dog’s well-being but that’s *almost* empathizable considering the stress). If a man tries to take your dog or says you’re not going to like what he’s going to do and you’re alone in a park with him, it’s reasonable to call the cops. It only makes you a garbage person if you then weaponize his race while you’re at it.
Wrongfully accused of *what though?* Did someone hear him say Jizz and think he was being a creep? Nah man that's just recognisable bird movement! I remember seeing a video a few years ago of a woman approaching a black man in what could have been central park and just yelling at him to leave or she would call the cops, but the video includes her seeing him and coming over to do that. I wonder if it was the same one.
It's this one https://youtu.be/aPvb_mszKew
Oh my god, it's the same one. Why does she sound so angry and afraid, what the heck?
From memory he was telling her to put her dog on a lead (which i believe is required in that area of the park) as there were rare birds/hatchlings around. He tried to entice the dog over with a biscuit, which is a bit weird, but i think he didn't it only with the intention of holding-hands it until she put it on a lead;and then she freaked out. I do get her freaking out, but she comes across kinda racist...
If I remember rightly, he said that when owners refuse to leash their dogs, he offers treats - at which point they usually put a leash on.
That's a veiled threat, let's be honest. A stranger that has an issue with your dog telling you it won't like the treats they're about to give it? Fuck that. She still tried to sick the cops on him for being black and lied about being afraid for her life. So fuck her, she should have left the area. But don't offer my dog unknown treats if I don't know you.
It’s kind of crazy how hard it is to find information from his original post. This is from the only article I could find that even quoted this portion of his post. >However, Amy, clearly didn’t care, which caused Christian to respond, “Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,” according to his Facebook post. >Then Christian says he pulled out a dog treat and called after Amy’s dog. That is what he wrote in his post to describe the events leading up to the video. I do think that she acted excessively crazy, and I’m not justifying her actions. But I don’t think there is any other way to take “you’re not going to like it” as anything but a threat. But for some reason that initial post was left off of all of the coverage of this situation and now it is very difficult to find any information about it.
That is for sure a veiled threat (at least from the way it's written) so i understand her worry i suppose. Stillan ass for not leasing her dog and being a bigot it seems as well though!
Yea I agree about her. Definitely some issues there.
Yeah that sounds scary and I would be afraid for my pet, but I don't think I would react that way immediately going to threats and going to an authority.
Thanks, that's actually a great psychological technique. My opinion has changed.
Yeah, my partner filled me in. He watches birds and does not like unleashed dogs running the birds off so he started giving the dogs treats knowing that pet owners may not like that. He does this and is confronted by the with her asking him not to and she doesn't know if it could be poison or not, and he answered something like "You shouldn't leave your dog unleashed and open to the possibility of being poisoned" which is NOT reassuring. Aparrently he came off as sexist and condescending and shitty about it, then she got racist about it. So that sucks.
I'm torn between wanting to support him by watching the show but wanting to NOT support Disney+ by getting a subscription. I've never done a free trial of Disney+ before; maybe I can time a free trial with its release.
Listen to Kmele Fosters investigation into the two of these people in the video on Bari Weiss. They were both Karens. Very fascinating
Kudos; cannot believe how far I had to scroll down to find this nuanced advice...
His behavior technically matches the “Karen” archetype more. He saw himself as an enforcer of park rules prohibiting unleashed dogs, and he admitted that he would regularly confront people with unleashed dogs in the park. He carried treats with him specifically for this purpose.
Funny, cause while I agree with your points on her, this guy seeing himself as the last line of defense for dog rules prior to 9am comes across as ultra Karen to me. Whelp, what we gonna do cept accept a small annoyance here and there
[https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1/posts/10158742137255229](https://www.facebook.com/christian.cooper1/posts/10158742137255229) >ME: All you have to do is take him to the other side of the drive, outside the Ramble, and you can let him run off leash all you want. > >HER: It's too dangerous. > >ME: Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it. > >HER: What's that? > >ME (to the dog): Come here, puppy! > >HER: He won't come to you. > >ME: We'll see about that... > >I pull out the dog treats I carry for just for such intransigence. I didn't even get a chance to toss any treats to the pooch before Karen scrambled to grab the dog. > >HER: DON'T YOU TOUCH MY DOG!!!!! Sounds an awful lot like he was threatening to hurt her dog. I mean, she was in the wrong bringing it there and without a leash to boot, but imagine her situation. You're a woman alone in a park and a big dude tells you that he's going to "do something you won't like."
Which is give it a bunch of treats. Like too many dog treats. I don’t get how people can be like I can do whatever I want including continuing to do so after being asked to stop but if anyone even suggests they are going to do something I don’t like it’s a direct threat to my life or in this case my dogs life. Because a big man can do anything. Okay so she’s doing something wrong. Against the park rules. It interferes with the reason he is there. He asks her to stop. She doesn’t really care because she wants to do what she wants. But then he says he’s going to do something she doesn’t like and she gets the benefit of the doubt because you don’t know the severity of his hypothetical transgression? I love how people can be entitled and fearful at the same time.
Why are there people trying to defend Amy Coopers actions? Where she really stepped over the line is when she calls 911 saying "I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.” What response was she trying to elicit from the police when she said this blatant lie to the dispatcher? Was Christian Coopers actions towards Amy Cooper aggressive? Yes they were. Mr. Cooper was sick of people's shit. However, that doesn't warrant cops to come with guns drawn on you. Which is exactly what Miss Cooper was trying to do to Mr. Cooper.
I mean they also can just be both in the wrong. I just see two assholes
This.. She was being disrespectful when she didn't her dog on the leash after being asked to and informed that it was required. He then plays a shit game by making it sound like he's going to do something to her dog. And then she retaliates by threatening him with the prospect of police brutality. (That's how I understand the "I'm going to tell them a black man is threatening me" thing. Like "Remember what happened to George Floyd.") It was a sad and stupid escalation of a shitty situation, both sides played a role in it, maybe hers was bigger, maybe it wasn't, but the point is it didn't warrant a life-destroying witch hunt against her.
Honestly, I wanna be on his side... she sucks. But I don't really know what occurred here before the video cuts in. And when someone is actively baiting a pet away from it's owner with food, that's going too far. It's not unthinkable that someone could be poisoning your dog.
If you cannot control your dog, you should leash it. Simple, right?
Yup. She wouldn’t have been in that position if she weren’t acting like basic af rules don’t apply to her. That was his point. Leash your damn dog. And don’t get into a toddler level debate about whether you will or won’t.
[удалено]
He did. Several times. She wanted to have a debate. And since when is pulling out treats a threat?
>And since when is pulling out treats a threat? It isn't. But he said "I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it", and started calling the dog. I hope you see how that would have sounded like a threat to her. Clearly he wasn't going to do anything to the dog, but how could she know? >He did. Several times. She wanted to have a debate. And her not listening to him gives him exactly zero permission to take any kind of action. That's what people invented the police for. It seems to me like every criticism of his actions is getting construed as saying what she did was fine. The point is that the story isn't entirely black and white, and that we should maybe not go on fucking witch hunts and doxx people we've never seen before based on videos we watched on the internet. This woman did nothing more than act like a jerk towards a stranger in the park, and she lost her job and received death threats over it. Why wasn't it enough that the police gave her a slap on the wrist for an unnecessary call and false information?
It only sounds like a threat to her because he's a black man, that should be pretty obvious
You're right. It's not okay that she didn't have her dog on a leash. The thing is, he made it sound like he was going to hurt the dog. And that wasn't okay either. It scared her and then made her angry and then she did the next thing in this whole story that was not okay. So, yeah, it's her who was in the wrong to begin with. But he clearly helped escalate the situation, and that bit has been ignored by almost everyone. edit: look, let's say she was stupid to misinterpret his words and actions as a threat - his next step was to take out his phone and record her. At that point he must have known she was getting irrational, and that recording her would likely escalate the situation further. Still not BLAMING him, okay? She started it. She overreacted. But he saw the whole trainwreck coming and not only decided against deescalating but helped it along, and now suddenly we have a villain and a hero where it really was just a dude deciding to butt heads with a willfully ignorant woman.
Well yeah, but that doesn't condone his behavior. It was premeditated for Christsake he was walking around with a baggie of treats.
He explicitly said *"Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it."* I believe the phrase is "fuck around and find out"
Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck
someone call the cops. he was walking around with.... a bag of treats!
Highly recommend this article and podcast (spoiler alert: they're both kind of terrible) https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-central-park?s=r
Kmele Foster is so good
Good for this guy. What an awful incident. I hate so much that this happened in our society. I'm not at all interested in birds ( r/BirdsArentReal right?) but I hope he finds success.
Wow... and it's not just him bird watching around NY either, they're flying him all over the world for the show. What a great twist of fate. :)
Birder, not bird-watcher. It’s literally in the name of his show, get it together NPR. Congrats to Christian!
This makes me happy! Good for him!
I love this so much.
My reaction was immediately: Good! Great for him! Dude's got an opportunity of a lifetime out of a bad experience, I think this is absolutely worth celebrating!
What if she was right and now he has to pretend to like birds.
she wasn’t. but haha. she was actually fired from her job.
You grackle!
Oh FUCK YEAH
What was he even accused of?
Quote from Amy Cooper, the Central Park Karen: “I'm gonna tell them there's an African American man threatening my life.”
But he was threatening her dog, by his own admission: > Christian asked Amy to leash her dog, and she allegedly refused. By his own account, Christian then said, "Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it," and beckoned the dog toward him with a dog treat.[3]
Right, not her life.
omg peanut butter. so scary for a dog. you clown.
Oh know threatening dogs with treats! Soooooo scary!
I sincerely hope, for you and your dogs’ sake, that if an angry stranger starts to lure your dog and says “you won’t like it” that you take that seriously and not assume it is a harmless treat.
Treats that could be poisoned, could be used to attack or abduct the dog. At the time, she had zero information on what he was intending to do.
sorry, I am not interested.
I'm definitely going to watch this!
I would highly encourage people to listen to the podcast Honesty with Bari Weiss - the real story of “the Central Park Karen”.
As a counter to this statement: I feel anyone who sees this comment should know This podcast is well known for missing facts, having a biased host, and a few times outright lying.
lol right? Whenever I see Bari Weiss show up on a show or podcast the credibility of that show tanks in my books
Thanks for the heads up
Firstly it was a guest who did the story. Second the things they bring up have records and can be backed but you go ahead and make those claims without listening to it.
Turns out guests can also be wrong, biased, and misrepresent facts. Who knew!?
Seconded. This story is not how people have had it portrayed to them. To those downvoting without having any idea why, maybe you check out the podcast?
This is hilarious, good for him!
Awesome!
Every episode a random Karen interrupts the show with her dog
The did threaten her, don't know why he's getting a pass.
he’s not getting a pass. he’s getting a tv show. much better. a pass is just nothing happens. a tv show has much mo betta benefits.
I'm not defending everything Amy Cooper did, but this guy wasn't wrongfully accused. > So when I encounter viral moments like the one involving the Coopers — the angel and the villain so neatly laid out, each person frozen in roles in a grand ideological narrative — my first instinct is to ask: What context am I missing here? > Here the answer was: an awful lot. > For starters, there was the Facebook post that Christian shared when he uploaded the original video, which his sister posted on Twitter in the hours after the encounter. In the post, Christian recorded his contemporaneous account of what happened in the moments before the camera started rolling. “Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,” Christian recounted himself saying to Amy. He also shared that he’d pulled out “the dog treats I carry for just for [sic] such intransigence.” > I had read an embarrassing number of stories and social media takes about this brief conflict. Not a single one of them had mentioned this public Facebook post. https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-central-park?s=r
He was wrongfully accused
Well it looks like he made a veiled threat to feed her dog poisoned treats if she didn't put it on a leash, which doesn't exactly make him look like the greatest person either.
What if he was going to let the dog smell an unpoisoned treat and then throw it really hard?
How is the woman supposed to know what he's gonna do.
Hmm not sure, but maybe she shouldn't just immediately assume that a black man was going to harm her, and then lie to the police about it.
You're immediately making an awfully negative assumption about a black man who's displayed no violent or sociopathic tendencies... Hmmmm, I wonder if making negative assumptions like this is the entire fucking issue?
"I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it." Definitely not threatening.
Unless he was ~~charged with~~ accused of offering treats to others' dogs, yeah, he was wrongfully accused. Edited
Well that's awesome. And as it should be. Good on this dude...I hope he has a decent TV personality so he can take it as far as he wants to. Disappointed to hear the woman had the charges dropped, but I'm not terribly surprised given who it was. But, I'll still take this as a "net uplifting".
This gives me a little more faith in humanity than I had before. Every little bit helps.