Central Park Karen shows she has learned nothing

A little over one year ago, a middle-aged New Yorker briefly became the most hated woman in America.

Amy Cooper, whom the Internet instantly dubbed “Central Park Karen”, was asked to leash her dog while she was walking her pet in the Big Apple’s large open space.

The man who made the request, Christian Cooper (no relation), was Black. Amy Cooper is White. Amy Cooper reacted to Christian’s intervention by calling police and claiming that she was being threatened by an African-American man.

Video of the incident soon went viral and Amy Cooper was vilified far and wide. Many observers felt that she had deliberately put Christian Cooper’s life in danger through making a false report and that, in doing so, she exercised her privilege as a White female.

Things got even worse, however, for the female Cooper. Not only was she terminated by her employer, Franklin Templeton, she then faced criminal charges related to making that false report.

Eventually, she managed to dodge jail time through a commitment to therapy.

Now, however, crazy Central Park Karen is back in the news with a fresh lawsuit.

She is suing her former employer Franklin Templeton. According to the legal filing in Manhattan Federal Court, Amy Cooper claims the May 25, 2020 episode was spurred on by her dread of this birder, Christian Cooper, that she says has a history of “aggressively confronting” people for not leashing their dogs. This, Amy Cooper claims, caused her “to reasonably fear” for the protection of herself and her pet.

Amy Cooper also claims in the lawsuit that she had been named “racist” by Franklin Templeton and that they publicized the episode on Twitter and fired her after claiming the company conducted an investigation.

Amy Cooper further claims in the suit the investment firm only interviewed her in the immediate wake of the incident while she was still “palpably distraught and fearful of her safety,” and did not seek information Christian Cooper or anybody else he might have come in contact with.

The publicity, Amy Cooper claims, spurred “countless phone calls” and text messages from people who hunted to threaten and frighten her. Because of this, she says she’s suffered “extreme emotional distress”.  

Franklin Templeton has called the lawsuit “baseless” and said they will contest it.