New York Governor Supports ‘Karen’ Legislation Inspired By Amy Cooper’s False 911 Accusation
Amy Cooper’s frantic call to police because a Black man named Christian Cooper told her to put her dog on a leash is creating more change than she could have imagined.
There is now a new bill in reaction to her calling 911.
According to the New York Post, the legislation was introduced back in 2018 but Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) reintroduced the bill due to Amy Cooper’s viral video showing her harassing a bird watcher and calling the cops.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reportedly said during his daily briefing call on Friday (June 5), “We’ve seen 911 calls which are race-based, false calls. A false 911 call based on race should be classified as a hate crime in the state of New York.”
Assemblyman Ortiz told the New York Post, violators could face between one and five years in prison, in accordance with the state’s hate crime statute “if the motivation for reporting such crime is motivated by a perception or belief about their race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation.”
He also added, “The bottom line is: We should be using better judgement. Racism gets created, and I think that by making false reporting because of gender or religion is completely unacceptable and intolerable.”
Amy Cooper, known on social media as Central Park Karen, went viral after a video posted to Twitter on Monday (May 25) showed her calling police on Christian Cooper, a birdwatcher in Central Park.
She was seen on video calling the police, saying: "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life." It also appeared that she was strangling her dog in the process.
After the searing social media backlash, Cooper was fired as vice-president of Investment Solutions for Franklin Templeton firm and temporarily lost custody of her dog.
See the video below:
