A video of Caucasian woman named Amy Cooper accusing an African American man of threatening her in New York City’s Central Park went viral in 2020. The world watched in horror as Amy called 911 on Christian Cooper, no relation. Christian is an avid birdwatcher who just wanted Amy to keep her dog on a leash, as was the park’s rules. He is seen being calm, rational, and level-headed throughout the stressful encounter as he filmed it.
Christian is now the star of a new National Geographic series on birdwatching entitled Extraordinary Birder. The first of six episodes will premiere on June 17. Nice guys can finish first.
Christian’s traumatic incident is not mentioned at all in the trailers for the upcoming series. “The fun of birding is, you never know what you’re going to get … This is what birding is about,” he gushes.
National Geographic has the following to say about the series and Christian’s dedication to the art of bird watching: “Whether 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.” Sounds like quite the adventure.
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Amy Cooper faced the consequences for her actions. She was fired from her job at Franklin Templeton bank after the video of her went viral. Franklin Templeton issued a statement saying that it did not “tolerate racism of any kind.”
Amy is quietly fighting for her job back. Lawyer Matt Litt is handling her appeal, claiming the bank wrongly labeled her as a racist. The case does not appear to be going well.
Christian was a class act throughout this whole affair. He did not want to press charges but the district attorney went ahead without him. Amy was charged with falsely reporting an incident to police.
The DA believed Amy was "a threat to the community if allowed to go unchecked. The simple principle is that one cannot use the police to threaten another and in this case, in a racially offensive and charged manner."
In 2021, the misdemeanor charge against Amy was dropped, as explained by Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi. "Given the issues at hand and Ms. Cooper's lack of criminal background, we offered her, consistent with our position on many misdemeanor cases involving a first arrest, an alternative, restorative justice resolution," the assistant DA stated. Amy completed five therapy sessions that were described as a "moving experience” in which she "learned a lot.”
Christian appears to have forgiven Amy. "I'm not sure that her one minute of poor decision-making, bad judgments and, without question, racist response necessarily has to define her completely, you know?" he told NPR.
One thing is certain, he is living his best life traveling the world to birdwatch, putting the trying incident behind him and moving forward with his life.
