Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the cops on a Black man in Central Park over the weekend as seen in a now-viral video, was fired on Tuesday.
Cooper’s employer, Franklin Templeton, announced on Twitter that it made the decision to terminate her after conducting an internal review of the incident in the park, adding, “We do not tolerate racism of any kind.”
The asset management firm had placed Cooper on administrative leave late Monday during its investigation.
Earlier on Monday, Christian Cooper (no relation to Amy) posted a video on Facebook of Amy Cooper calling the police on him after he reportedly asked her to place her dog on its leash. They were in an area called the Ramble, where off-leash dogs are not permitted.
In the video, Amy Cooper threatens to call the cops, saying, “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.” She then places the call, repeatedly identifying Christian Cooper, who is Black, as an “African American man” and saying he was recording and “threatening” her.
Cooper, who is a board member of the conservation group the Audubon Society and was birding in the park at the time, said in his Facebook post that Amy Cooper’s “inner Karen fully emerged and took a dark turn.”
As HuffPost’s Zeba Blay wrote, when Amy Cooper called the police, she “knew exactly what she was doing” by wielding the power of law enforcement, which has a long racist history in the United States of unjust killings of Black people.
Amy Cooper apologised on Monday, telling NBC News that her behaviour was “unacceptable.”
In turn, Christian Cooper told CNN on Tuesday that if her apology was “genuine” and “if she plans on keeping her dog on a leash in the Ramble going forward, then we have no issues with each other.”
The Audubon Society said in a statement Tuesday that the outdoors “should be safe and welcoming for all people.”
“Black Americans often face terrible daily dangers in outdoor spaces, where they are subjected to unwarranted suspicion, confrontation, and violence,” Rebeccah Sanders, senior vice president of Audubon, said. “We unequivocally condemn racist sentiments, behaviour, and systems that undermine the humanity, rights, and freedom of Black people. We are grateful Christian Cooper is safe. He takes great delight in sharing New York City’s birds with others.”