Woman calls cops another Black Jogger

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She did get heavily punished for her "transgression",
But he didn't for mishandling the confrontation.
Such is life. <shrug>

The other thing to consider, as you suggested:
Was this a set-up waiting to happen?
Was he intending to ambush any transgressor who violated his sanctuary?
Did he deliberately provoke the situation?

I can't see a definitive answer to this speculation.

He is good at what he does.
Obviously, he takes pride in what he is doing.
You gotta respect that.

Hmmm this assumes that Christian Cooper was behaving like a criminal. The jury came back with a resounding no on that one QFT. But taking your point, a criminal act is one where - one causes harm to either property or person. Your claim here is that C.Cooper tried to "harm" the dog. There is no evidence unless somebody does a toxicology test on the dog biscuits/bones that he was carrying.



Yes the act of handling your laptop is aggressive but still isn't a crime unless the cashier took your laptop and refused to give it back.



That's different, this is a threat to harm using fatal force which is a crime.



Well it may be "inappropriate". The point at which C.Cooper started filming was the point at which threats were made so his motivation to film was to prevent a situation where he would have to explain to an authority figure why this woman was accusing him of threatening, Most people feel he was perfectly within his rights to protect himself from unfair retribution,


Interestingly nobody has come forward. Why a man carries dog bones is, however, a mystery. If a book is ever written on this incident then I would hope the author addresses this conundrum


If you watch the video I posted, A.Cooper stood her ground instead of running away...she wanted C.Cooper hear her making the threatening and fake 911 call. She was willing to let her dog get suffocated to get her way. She committed two crimes that day. And (OF COURSE) she knows



The message was clear, she could have apologised leashed the dog and walked away


He pointed out there were signs everywhere, she's not blind, if you listen to her excuse it was clear she knew she was breaching the regulation and he has the right to point that out.


There was a weird element to his veiled threat...I'll admit that, but I think it was to teach her a lesson that an unleashed dog is fair game (perhaps stolen)


We are into hypotheticals...like saying what if JFK decided not to drive down Dealy Plaza


She had ample opportunity on a number of occasions to de-escalate the situation, she was responsible for escalating the tension and making it worse, for herself and the dog.


Oh I think she read the situation and was reacting to his comment by counter-threatening him, but her threat was out of proportion to the actual threat that he presented.


He did have time to think and had he chose to not say "I might do something you may not like" I suspect the event would never had taken place. So in that context he triggered her anxiety but how she responded was so horrible


There was no punishment for either of them from the local authorities, her employer fired her and she gave back the dog because she was on film strangling the poor pooch. Both of these repurcussions are result of cause and effect which was inevitable,


No she let the dog off the leash and when she leached it wanted to keep walking, I own a dog and if I let him run then randomly put him on leash he will be confused but will want to keep running but would listen to me if I said "no", my best guess she wasn't bonded with the dog and didn't know how to control him (fairly obvious)


Ok that's a valid point, refer to my earlier point, I think she wasn't familiar with the dog's behavior.



I don't think so, the dog would be straining toward C.Cooper but was clearly wanting to run in the opposite direction, likely adrenaline pumping the dog was restless



C.Cooper sent the video to his sister and she chose to upload the video. I am not 100% sure it was his decision? In your scenario the girl in your office never complained right? she just gave you the cold shoulder. I mentioned to you many months ago that girls are expert at selectively doing that (heck they do it me on WP )


All hypothetical, in what universe is murder a lesser sentence than theft?


You received a negative punishment which is the girl is depriving you of attention. She may choose not to interact with you because she has nothing to say OR she is being bitchy and not wanting to interact so is avoiding you (theory of out of sight out of mind)


I see this social situation is one that interests you. I think if he i) harmed the dog ii) stole the dog iii) touched or was violent or threatend violence...somebody who is a threat to physical wellbeing would qualify for 911



The planning aspect is interesting? I am at a loss why he would choose to carry bones and he did say something on facebook that he carries them for such purposes. He may be a mentally unstable but as I said his behavior never warranted the level of response from A,Cooper.

Do you want to co-author a paper on this incident. I feel like writing again,

But "threatening" to harm, without harming, is still a crime. Like suppose someone puts a bag and make it "look like" an explosive. But actually there is no explosive there. Even though there is no explosive, its still a crime, just because he got people scared.



I thought it is: you can't touch someone else's items without their permission.



But then Christian Cooper did that too. No, he didn't mention "fatal force". But he said "something you don't like". So by purposely being vague, he left the door open for the possibility of it being something physical. No, he didn't say its physical. But he didn't say it isn't. He just left the door open by being vague. And that kind of vagueness scares people.



To me it looks like the other way around. She was reacting to his filming.



To me it seems like he saw plenty of people taking the dogs off leash at the area where they weren't allowed to, so he decided to use these bones to teach all these people a lesson.

But that implies that he also pre-planned it. Thats really the main reason why I feel like its more his fault than her, since he was planning it, with all the time on his side.



Maybe she was afraid that Christian Cooper will run faster than her since he is a male. Apart from that, the dog would additionally slow her down since the dog might attempt to get to his bones while she is running away or the dog might plain not feel like running since you can't explain to the dog what was going on.

So since running was not her strength, she decided to use something that was: the race card and the fact that -- as a black man -- he would be afraid of police. Yes its racist, but at the same time she had no other areas where she had an "edge" over him (since a male is stronger than a female) so -- out of sheer desperation -- she might have used the only area where she did.

She might not even be a racist herself, she might have just thought "okay, police is racist, so police is going to be on my side, I better take advantage of it". She doesn't have to "share" police's attitude on race in order to "use" it to her advantage -- its called "grasping at the straws".



It wasn't, because he was saying he will do "something she doesn't like" without saying what it is going to be.



As you wrote yourself a bit later, she didn't know how to handle her dog very well.



As far as pointing it out, yes he was right to do it.

But he did a lot more than just point it out: he said he will "do something that she doesn't like" and he tried to bait the dog. So that is where he went wrong.

He should have just pointed it out and/or said he would report her to security and/or actually report her to security. These three things would have been fine. Anything beyond that is inappropriate.



That would be true even in the areas where dogs are allowed without leashes, so that lesson is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

And, in any case, he didn't say thats what he was trying to teach her. You are only guessing he did.

If he wanted to teach her something for her own benefit he should have said "somebody might throw the dog a bone and steal the dog; do you want me to demonstrate how someone would do it?" and then wait for her to say either "yes" or "no" before he proceeds with demonstration. But thats not what he did is it. In fact, he never came back later to say thats what his point was, so the supposed point was missed.



The issue is the timeline. Right now its hypothetical, back then it wasn't. She had a choice between strangling the dog and risking that the dog would get off leash. "After time passed" this choice "became" a hypothetical since we all know which road she took. But -- back in the situation -- it wasn't a hypothetical "yet", since she was facing a real possibility of the dog getting off leash that she haven't prevented "yet".



If she was calm and collected, then maybe she could have de-escalated it. But its hard to be calm and collected when one feels threatened. If anybody could have been calm, it would be the guy, since he pre-planned it with bones and so forth. The girl, on the other hand, was put on the spot. Its hard to be calm in such a situation.



The thing to keep in mind is that his threat with "something you don't like" was too vague. So how would she know what would be the "right proportion" to something as vague as that? Thats why she chose to err on the side of caution.



Thats precisely my point.



He had a lot more time to think about it and realize he shouldn't do it, than she was given a time to think about her response.

The whole point is that he had the bones prepared. Thats why I am saying he had a lot more time to think about it than she did.



Are you saying she gave off her dog voluntirely? Because I was under the impression that the authorities "made her" give it off?



I don't see how it was inevitable. The employers didn't have to fire her, for one thing.



Thats what I think too. But that just proves my point that it wasn't her fault. Because its not like she purposely wanted to torture the dog. Rather, she was put in the situation that she didn't know how to handle very well.



Exactly



I think it was hard to tell what the dog was going to do, other than the fact that it tried to get away from the leash.



But there is a good chance that it was. In either case, they were clearly cooperating and they clearly both wanted to post it -- regardless of who suggested it first.



Correct, she never complained.

However, my question is: why were "you" saying that she might? And that question is still valid since you were, in fact, thinking along these lines back at that time.

The reason this question is relevant here is because the person who used to tell me my officemate would complain happened to be the same person who is saying that Amy Cooper shouldn't have complained. Hence the question as to why -- in your mind -- my behavior was "worse" than the behavior of Christian Cooper.



I was making an analogy in order to illustrate my point. Here is where the analogy came from:

Me: How come you thought that girl in the office might complain, yet you are also saying Amy Cooper shouldn't have

You: What you did and what Christian Cooper did are two completely different things, so you shouldn't compare apples to oranges

Me: Sometimes you "can" compare apples to oranges. For example, thieft and murder are two completely different things yet it would be weird if a theift was punished more harshly than the murder. By the same token, its also weird for someone to say that the girl in my office might complain and then -- later -- for that same person to also say that Amy Cooper shouldn't have complained.



Like I said, my question was pertaining to what "you" were syaing last fall as opposed to "her" actual behavior.



What about (iii) How would she be able to pull out a phone and dial 911 and talk to them if he was violent towards her at that very moment?



I am all for writing papers, I need publications. I guess its not a physics publication but hey its better than nothing, so yes

By the way you mentioned you were in academia. What department are you in?

I used to be a microbiologist (amusingly some retired trolls on this forum have accused me of lying) but only ever worked in the capacity of a "research only" staff member in various universities back in the 1980s/90s. I haven't been an author on a journal article since the late 1990s.

Nowadays I work as a freelance consultant in the higher education sector (So I'm still connected to universities).

I'm interested in writing again. I am interested in how you process the Central Park event in terms of morality, law etc....

Let's start with this....Taken from /www.nycgovparks.org/parks/central-park/facilities/dogareas

Dogs must be on a leash (no more than six feet long) at all times, except in dog runs and designated off-leash areas at the prescribed times. You must pick up after your dog and dispose of the waste in containers provided throughout the park. You must prevent your dog from chasing birds, squirrels, and other animals.
These rules are part of the NYC legal code; dog owners may be fined for any violation.

This contradicts what some posters had claimed that Amy Cooper was not committing a criminal act. Secondly the dog was allegedly chasing wildlife which is likely what triggered Christian Cooper.

The bylaws in NY Central park explain why he carries dog bones to make sure the dogs off leash don't scare the birds (he is after all a bird watcher).

In my view his choice of vocation (a bird watcher with a bicycle helmet) didn't compute for Amy Cooper who wasn't used to seeing black men on bicycles or watching birds with binoculars. I think he was joking when he said "I'm going to do something and you are not going to like it" meaning he was going to retrieve her dog. She mistook it for a threat because she's a) ignorant and b) carried implicit bias about black men

Looking back to my days as a security guard: "Assault" (in a legal definition) covers both causing actual harm, or where the "victim" has a belief of the potential for actual harm to be inflicted..."The act of assault is always intentional and entails reasonable apprehension by the victim of immediate harm irrespective of whether the actual harm has occurred." ( https://www.bsglaw.net/the-meaning-of-a ... alian-law/ ).

Assuming a similar definition exists in the law for the location where the confrontation occurred, and that the male was of a larger (or even similar) "build" than the female, him saying "If you do what you want, then I'll do what I want, but you may not like it" (or words to that effect) could certainly be seen as assault, with the female fearing for her safety.

On a side note, the reason I left the security industry was as a result of being the "victim" in a situation like this (although in my case it was 4 people, not one - when police arrived I was asked if I wanted to press charges, but at the time all I was thinking was I wanted the people as far away as possible.)...I miss the nice quiet nights walking around near-empty buildings with minimal interaction with people and being paid for it.

Having seen the video, she is clearly in "panic" mode\"fight or flight", looking unsure of what to do, and not being able to think "logically"...A feeling I still remember from nearly 15 years ago.

The sad part of this whole thing is that people who have never experienced this sort of situation are all judging her actions, having no understaing of what she would have been going through at the time or since, making assumptions to suit what they wish to belive her intentions were.

During that call, she would have been focussed on the face of the person she believed was threatening her...she has backed away from him, but appears too scared to turn her back, or to look backwards to seek a way to exit the situation, fearing this will leave her open to an attack she feels is iminent. The emphasis on him being "black" is becasue at a time like that, focussed on the face of her "attacker", that is probably the only identifable "feature" she can see. Claiming a person in a situation like this is "racist" says more about the person making the claim than about the person in this video.

There's three problems with your defence of Amy Cooper.

Firstly you are conflating your assault working as a security guard (which must have been traumatising) with Amy Cooper's claim to "feeling" threatened. They are two different things. Amy Cooper's allegation of feeling threatened had more to do with her feeling indignant rather than threatened.

Second watch the video, she's the one who threatens Christian Cooper by moving forward in a highly aggressive manner (it amuses me how much those defending her selectively ignore her blatant behaviour caught on film). Again it reinforced indignation that a a highly paid executive in a major firm is being challenged by a person she feels beneath her,

Third if you read the transcript of her encounter she said to Christian Cooper (and I quote) “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.”
That's a clear warning of her intention (not a call for help). She clearly invoked "the blackman" to make sure the maximum force of the police (which she knows their reputation with black people) would fall on Christian Cooper.

I really liked this video and I can see where the aspie experience and the black experience overlap. If you meet someone like this pretty much start whistling 'row, row, row your boat' and get the hell out of there. If civilization comes to unrest these sorts of 'I'm used to doing whatever the heck I want unchallenged and if you don't like that I'll call 911' are going to be all the more radioactive to be around as they lose their sanity and start ordering everyone to get them their throne, their fan, etc.. It almost reminds me of BPD style of manipulation but people who have a BPD diagnosis and who know about it tend to often have themselves together a bit better than this whereas she's 'just her'.

So, from a safe position, never having experienced this sort of situation, you feel free to judge another's actions?

At the point where filming starts, she would already have entered the "panic" mode, having received the threat that he would "do what he wants to do and she may not like it". The moving forward and making that statement were about the only option she would have had to try and make the person she felt was threatening her back down (much like in wildlife documentaries where a cornered animal will sometimes try to make itself seem larger, or feint at the attacker in order to drive it away). You can see that when that fails she moves back, trying to make herself a smaller target.

Just because some people seemingly need to see racist reasons for an action doesn't mean they are there, and inserting them where they do not apply can lead to the devaluing of the accusation where it does apply.

If she was panic mode she would run




You can;t have it both ways Brictoria, Flight OR fight....clearly she did not flee so wasn't panicked so she chose to "fight"

Thank you for confirming your total lack of understanding of what she would have been going through or what I am trying to describe based on personal experience...When you enter "panic" mode, rational thought\action isn't what generally occurs. What she attempted was the "fight" option, which when it failed meant all she had left was "flight", where she retreated.

On a side note, with the camera on the female, we see no indication of how the person filming is reacting\their facial expression\physical actions, which could also have a major impact on her reactions...

It must be so nice for some people to be able to sit in their ivory tower throwing claims of racism at situations of which they have never experienced...And they say that it's the ASD "sufferers" who lack empathy.

Sorry Brictoria, we have to agree to disagree on this one.

While you see a "damsel in distress" being threatened by some random black thug; what i see is a vindictive and aggressive female who invoked racist tropes about black men threatening white women in order to punish a man (who dared pioint out she was in the wrong) who after examining the evidence really didn't deserve her response.

Since you are comparing this to your personal experiences then allow me the indulgence to do the same. I grew up in an upper class neighborhood with plenty of these types who earned 6 figure salaries and her personality type fits nicely. They hate being told when they are wrong, especially by somebody they feel superior over. Her manners/expression are exactly how I would expect somebody with her background to behave.

so many non-upper class folk defending and glorifying upper class people, as though they themselves think that if they play their cards right and kiss enough upper class, that they too will be able to join their ranks.

Strangely enough, I grew up on a small farm outside a little country town (population 100 or so), and was also subject to people who lived in "upper middle class" areas in large towns\cities. They loved (and still do love) looking down on those, like us, who they felt "superior" to and loved telling us what we should do, and how we should act, while they had no personal experience in what they were talking about, but still acting as thought their opinions of something held more value than the experiences of people who had lived through, or relied upon certain actions that had occurred or were to occur...In fact, for some reason, I feel like I'm starting to have flashbacks to this now.

I'll reiterate that your experience of panic facing 4 people in an assault is not the same as Amy Cooper's panic.

Her's was based on panic because she looked foolish because she did the wrong thing and did not know how to react. You talked about animal instinct, I posit that she reacted from a deep set feeling of antipathy against Christian Cooper. The fact she apologised later verifies this.

You keep focusing on the fact that he "told her she was wrong" while the issue is *HOW* he told her, and thats what you keep ignoring.

If he were to "tell her she was wrong" WITHOUT saying "I will do something you won't like" and WITHOUT the demonstration with the dog bone, then I would have been on his side. But because he DID these two things, thats what makes me be on her side.