The New York woman who called police about a Black man asked her to put her dog on a leash, claiming that he was threatening her–resulting in a the term “Karen” shooting into popular culture as a pejorative term for overly-alarmed white women who unduly escalate otherwise common situations–has had the charges filed against her by prosecutors dropped, CNN reports.
Amy Cooper completed a therapy and education classes on racial equity, prompting prosecutors to drop the charges, Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi told the court. Cooper was facing a single charge of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree.
Cooper gained infamy for a May episode in Central Park when she called police after Christian Cooper, a Black man unrelated to Amy Cooper, asked Amy Cooper to put her dog on a leash, as required in the wooded area of the park they were in. Amy Cooper alleged in the 9-1-1 call that Christian Cooper was threatening her, although Christian Cooper–who was recording the interaction on his phone–neither approached Amy Cooper or said anything threatening.
“I’m taking a picture and calling the cops,” she says in video of the incident taken by Christian Cooper. “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”
The incident happened on the same day as a Minneapolis Police killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, who died after officers responded to a report of a man passing a counterfeit bill, and a police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck and back, asphyxiating him. Floyd’s death led to renewed Black Lives Matter protests around the world.
Amy Cooper completed courses and therapy at New York’s Critical Therapy Center, where the district attorney said she “focused on the ways in which Ms. Cooper could appreciate that racial identities shape our lives but we cannot use them to harm ourselves or others. Having completed 5 sessions, Ms. Cooper’s therapist reported that it was a moving experience and that Ms. Cooper learned a lot in their sessions together,”