The Manhattan prosecutor accused the woman of falsely reporting an incident.
The Manhattan district attorney charged Amy Cooper, the white woman who was filmed threatening to call police by a blackbird watcher in Central Park in May.
“Today our office initiated a trial against Amy Cooper for falsely reporting a third-degree incident,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement.
Vance did not elaborate, other than that Cooper, 40, received a desk appearance ticket for a misdemeanor charge reading Oct. 14.
Christian Cooper, 57, a black comic writer and biomedical editor for Health Science Communications and a member of the board of directors for the Audubon Society of New York City, said he was birdwatching in Central Park on Memorial Day and discovered that a dog was off a leash. and tearing the vegetation.
Christian Cooper told the dog’s owner, Amy Cooper, that he needed a leash and tried to lure the dog away from the plants with some treats.
It was then that the situation escalated, according to Christian Cooper, who began filming on his cell phone.
Amy Cooper was furious and started threatening the bird watcher.
“I am taking a photo and calling the police,” she says in the video. “I will tell you that there is an African American man threatening my life.”
Amy Cooper followed up on her threat and told police over the phone that “he is filming me and is threatening me and my dog,” according to the video. The officers arrived but made no arrest.
The video, which was posted on Christian Cooper’s Facebook page, went viral and Amy Cooper was fired from her job at investment firm Franklin Templeton the next day. The dog was returned to the animal shelter, however, two weeks later it was returned “after an evaluation by a veterinarian and a coordinated effort with the police,” ABC New York WABC station reported.
Mayor Bill de Blasio intervened shortly after the incident was made public, calling Amy Cooper’s actions “racism, plain and simple.”
Robert Barnes, a lawyer who says he represents Amy Cooper, told ABC News in a statement that she will be found not guilty in the case.
“The rush to judge some in public, in this epidemic of canceling culture, will prove as wrong as canceling culture itself. He lost his job, his home and his public life,” Barnes told ABC News. “Now some are demanding that you lose your freedom? How many lives are we going to destroy by misunderstood 60-second videos on social media?”
The day after the incident, Amy Cooper issued an apology to Chris Cooper.
“I want to apologize to Chris Cooper for my actions when I met him yesterday in Central Park. I reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions when, in fact, it was I who was acting inappropriately by not having my dog on a leash.” said in the statement.
Christian Cooper accepted her apology.
“I think it is a first step. I think you should reflect on what happened because up until the moment you made that statement,” he told “The View” on May 28. “It was just a conflict between a bird watcher and a dog walker, and then it led to a very dark place. I think you need to examine why and how that happened.”
Vance urged other New Yorkers to call his office if they have experienced a situation similar to that of Christian Cooper.
“We are firmly committed to holding perpetrators responsible for this conduct,” he said in a statement.
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