Bird watcher at center of 'Central Park Karen' saga gets TV show on National Geographic
The black comic book writer and scientist who was threatened with the police by a white woman after telling her to leash her dog in New York City's Central Park is set to launch his own TV show.
Christian Cooper will star in National Geographic's Extraordinary Birder which is set to be released on June 17, the network announced. It comes three years after he was confronted by Amy Cooper on May 25, 2020 - the same day on which George Floyd was murdered.
Christian Cooper, 59, was birdwatching in the park's Ramble area at the time, and had asked Cooper - no relation - to leash her dog in accordance with park rules.
The new trailer makes no reference to the Central Park incident. It begins with the Harvard-educated scientist declaring: 'I am Christian Cooper and I am a birder!'
The release of the show comes at the same time that Amy Cooper is deeply embroiled in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against her former employer, Wall Street bank Franklin Templeton. The firm fired Amy Cooper the day after the video emerged.
While holding her dog by his collar, (pictured) , Amy Cooper - no relation Christian Cooper - told him in the now-viral video that she was 'going to take your picture and calling the cops. I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life'
In a trailer for Christian Cooper's new show, he is seen in various exotic locations tracking beautiful birds such as a great blue.
'The fun of birding is, you never know what you're going to get... this is what birding is about,' he declares.
'Whether [he is] 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,' a press release promoting the show read.
Amy Cooper, meanwhile, has kept a low profile since the incident and did not respond to a DailyMail.com request for comment. She also continues to fight her firing through the courts.
Last week, a three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 'appeared skeptical' by Amy Cooper's arguments in her appeal of a lower court's decision to throw out her claim of wrongful termination, according to the New York Law Journal.
When Amy Cooper was fired, Franklin Templeton said in a statement that the bank does not 'tolerate racism of any kind' and that they had conducted an 'internal review' prior to coming to its decision.
The woman, who was dubbed 'Central Park Karen', first began her lawsuit in May 2021, alleging that she had been defamed by the bank.
Her lawyer, Matt Litt, argued that the wording of the company's statement implied that investigators 'had facts unknown to the public and, number two, that the defendants used those facts to make the determination that Ms. Cooper was a racist,' reports Dealbreaker.
National Geographic announced Cooper will be taking viewers through multiple locations, such as Alaska and Puerto Rico, to birdwatch
Circuit Judge Alison Nathan disagreed with Litt's assessment, saying that the company made it clear in their statement that the decision was related to its review of the Central Park incident.
In another exchange, Circuit Judge Rosemary Pooler asked Litt if there were other things that Franklin Templeton should have considered before firing Amy Cooper.
Litt said that the company had 'declared' that she was a racist.
'Where did they say she was a racist?. They said "We do not tolerate racism" … that’s different,' Judge Barrington Parker cut in.
'The statement was connected to Amy every single time,' Litt responded.
'Of course it was. If you look at the video, the connection is automatic. Have you seen the video?' When the attorney said that he had Parker continued: 'She’s out there saying ‘I’m afraid for my life because this black man is filming me.'
Christian Cooper told CBS Mornings in June 2020 that he said: '"Excuse me, ma'am, but dogs in the Ramble have to be on the leash at all times'... And she said: "Well, the dog runs are closed."'
Amy said she had to flee the country and was 'suicidal' after the incident, where she was charged with a misdemeanor and lost her job
He can be heard over in the video he recorded telling Amy to 'please don't come closer to me,' to which she replied, while holding her dog by his collar, that she was 'going to take your picture and calling the cops. I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life.'
'She basically pulled the pin on the race grenade and tried to lob it at me,' he told CBS Mornings.
Cooper's video garnered thousands of views and Amy was dubbed the 'Central Park Karen' and eventually lost her job and was charged with a misdemeanor for making a false police report. The charges were later dropped after Manhattan prosecutors said she learned her lesson in therapy.
Amy Cooper told Bari Weiss on his Honesty podcast that she was 'as a woman alone in the park' and she didn't know if she had 'another option' beside contacting authorities and had 'explored all my options.'
'I tried to leave. I tried to look for anyone who’s around. There was no noise, no sound,' she said on the podcast.
She later claimed on the podcast that Christian had told her: 'If you’re going to do what you want to do, then I’m going to do what I want to do, but you’re not going to like it,' which Christian confirmed to CBS Mornings was true.
The birder had pulled out dog treats to help Amy leash her dog - an old birdwatcher trick, he said. However, Amy didn't perceive it that way.
She said on the podcast: ''I'm trying to figure out what that means? Is that a physical attack on me? An attack on my dog? What is he about to do?'
'I look up and he’s holding these dog treats in one hand and a bike helmet in his other hand and I’m thinking: “Oh my god, is this guy going to lure my dog over and try to hit him with his bike helmet? And if I end up over there am I going to get hit by this bike helmet?"'
Amy also says she was thrown off guard by Christian's change in demeanor when she called the cops.
'It’s really weird because he’s still standing there, you know, same very physical posture, and suddenly out of him comes this voice from man who’s been very dominant towards me,' she says.
'Suddenly, you know, almost this victimized voicing, [saying,] "Don’t come near me. Don’t come any closer,"' she says.
'Like, almost like he’s terrified of me…To me that’s even more terrifying now because you’ve gone from screaming at me - if you kept screaming at me, at least it was consistent, but now his whole verbal demeanor has changed.'
Amy says that when she asked Christian to stop recording, he refused, adding to her anxiety.
'At the point that she makes that phone call, it's very clear that, you know, there is no physical threat to her at all,' Christian told CBS Mornings. 'It's the iPhone and the dog treats.'
Amy also revealed on the podcast that she became 'suicidal' and had to flee the country following the incident after facing a large wave of hate on the internet.
Cooper has since gone on to write a book for DC Comics called It's A Bird, the first part of the company's digital anthology series called Represent, according to Open Culture.
The comic book has a similar storyline as Cooper's own encounter with Amy, but was set in a suburban area rather than Central Park's Ramble. The main character Jules comes across a white woman with her dog off his leash in the story.
Cooper also has roots in Marvel and was the company's first openly gay writer and editor.
National Geographic did not say when Extraordinary Birder would be released.
Source: Daily Mail
