NYC’s ‘Central Park Karen’: I still live in hiding three years after viral video
The white woman dubbed “Central Park Karen” when a video of her confrontation with a black birdwatcher went viral three years ago says she is still living in hiding and struggling to stay employed.
Amy Cooper claimed in a new opinion piece for Newsweek that she has received an endless flurry of hate mail that told her she deserves to be raped in prison or to kill herself and referred to her as a “Karen” — a term used for white women who victimize people of color — since the 2020 encounter in the Manhattan park.
“Over three years later, I am still in hiding. I am scared to be in public,” she lamented in the op-ed published Tuesday.
“I still can’t get a job that meets my qualifications,” Cooper wrote. “And there have been long stretches of unemployment. All leading to thoughts of self-harm.”
Cooper was fired from her job as an insurance portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Investments within 24 hours of the viral confrontation on May 25, 2020 — the same day that George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, sparking a national reckoning over racism.
She was caught on camera yelling at science and comic book writer Christian Cooper (no relation) and calling the police to claim an “African American man” was “threatening” her while she was walking her dog in the Ramble in Central Park.
“As Christian’s video went viral, my life, as I knew it, was over,” Cooper wrote of the days after Christian and his sister posted a brief clip that showed her calling the police on him, which was subsequently viewed over 40 million times.
“Was my never-ending cancel-culture sentence a just verdict?” she asked in the piece, titled “I Was Branded the ‘Central Park Karen’. I Still Live in Hiding.”
Cooper was charged by Manhattan prosecutors in July 2020 with falsely reporting an incident — and while the rap was ultimately tossed after she attended therapy sessions on racial bias, she still lost her job.
She later lost a wrongful termination lawsuit against her ex-employer in which she claimed she was illegally fired and portrayed as a racist.
Cooper said her family has “suffered enormously” from the scandal.
“I care for one of my parents, who has a terminal illness … I want them to know I’ll be OK, but I do not know if I will ever be,” she wrote in the op-ed.
The unforgiving public, Cooper claimed, still believes a narrative about her and Christian’s interaction that she alleged is far from the actual truth.
Cooper described taking her beloved dog for a morning walk, and specifically visiting a part of the popular park hangout where dogs are allowed off-leash early in the day.
On her way home, she trekked through the Ramble, a densely wooded area where dogs are always supposed to be on-leash, according to park rules.
“Seconds later, I heard a voice boom: ‘Get out of here. You shouldn’t be here,’” she claimed.
According to Cooper, the man — later identified as Christian Cooper — frightened her when he yelled at her and then pulled out treats for her dog.
“Before recording me, Christian Cooper yelled out: ‘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,’” she claimed.
Christian, who said the encounter began after Cooper refused to place her dog on the leash, admitted to saying those words in interviews following the incident.
“I was a female alone in a secluded area … with a man yelling at me and threatening me,” Cooper claimed in Newsweek.
“As a victim of sexual assault in my late teens, I was completely panicked for my safety and wellbeing [when I decided to call 911].”
In the days after the video went viral, critics zeroed in on the fact that Cooper can be heard telling Christian, “I’m gonna tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life” — as if she were “intentionally weaponizing a system of police brutality” against black males, Matt Steib later wrote in New York magazine.
Instead, Cooper wrote, she actually told Christian her plans “hoping that would be enough to dissuade him from his earlier threat.”
She does not mention whether she thought fears about racist police and possible violence would factor into Christian’s actions when he heard her threat.
But she noted that she never actually filed a false police report.
“That charge, which resulted from the onslaught of media and political pressure on the prosecutor’s office, was quickly dismissed because it had no basis in fact,” she wrote.
“For context, where I grew up, which was outside of the United States, uttering threats is considered assault and does not have to include physical force, just a lack of consent,” Cooper continued.
She also accused Christian of having “a history of aggressive behavior towards other dog owners” and said she “only reported exactly what happened to me that day when I was threatened by a man … in a remote, isolated area of Central Park.
“I was terrified and traumatized,” she wrote.
Christian, meanwhile, has continued to work since the notorious incident.
A short time later, he even wrote a book for DC Comics called “It’s A Bird,” which features a plot similar to his confrontation with Cooper.
He also launched a television show, “Extraordinary Birder,” with National Geographic in June this year.
Cooper said she has reached out to Christian multiple times over the years, but has never heard back.
“So, the next time you feel like telling someone to kill themselves after watching a two-minute video, know there is likely far more to the story — no matter what the claims,” she implored.
“There is no such thing as a ‘Karen.’ We are all just people. Each of us deserving grace and forgiveness. In the end, silencing the truth, the full story, hurts all of us.”
