By Barbara Goldberg
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A white woman has apologized after a video went viral showing her calling police to say she felt threatened by an African- American man who asked her politely to leash her dog in New York’s Central Park.
The video drew outrage on social media where it was viewed more than 28 million times, and the backlash prompted the woman’s employer, global investment firm Franklin Templeton, to put her on administrative leave.
Speaking to WNBC, the woman, Amy Cooper, said she wanted to “sincerely and humbly apologize” to the man, Christian Cooper, who is no relation. She turned over the dog to Abandoned Angels Cocker Spaniel Rescue Inc.
It was the latest racially tense confrontation to go viral. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating as a hate crime a black jogger’s fatal shooting by white men in Georgia and captured on video.
Melody Cooper, Christian’s sister who posted the latest video, called the dog owner a Karen, slang used to describe a middle-aged white woman perceived to be entitled.
“Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash,” Melody Cooper wrote.
“I’m going to call the cops,” Amy Cooper tells Christian Cooper on the video, apparently shot with a cellphone camera. “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.”
“Please tell them whatever you like,” Christian Cooper responds on the video.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Howard Goller)
