Is it allowed to have dogs off leash in that area of the park?

So when I encounter viral moments like the one involving the Coopers — the angel and the villain so neatly laid out, each person frozen in roles in a grand ideological narrative — my first instinct is to ask: What context am I missing here?

Here the answer was: an awful lot.

For starters, there was the Facebook post that Christian shared when he uploaded the original video, which his sister posted on Twitter in the hours after the encounter. In the post, Christian recorded his contemporaneous account of what happened in the moments before the camera started rolling. “Look, if you’re going to do what you want, I’m going to do what I want, but you’re not going to like it,” Christian recounted himself saying to Amy. He also shared that he’d pulled out “the dog treats I carry for just for [sic] such intransigence.”

I had read an embarrassing number of stories and social media takes about this brief conflict. Not a single one of them had mentioned this public Facebook post.

He threatened her, I thought, stunned. He says himself that he approached her — a woman alone in a wooded area. He tried to lure away her dog. How was this the first time I was reading these details? Had I just missed them in the other stories I’d read?

Kmele also uncovered important context lost in the public narrative, including:

A recording of Christian Cooper at a local community board meeting just days before his encounter with Amy Cooper. “It’s getting super ugly between birders and unleashed dog walkers,” he says. “I’ve been assaulted twice so far this spring, people actually putting their hands on me, which really surprises me, because I’m not a small guy.”

May 2020 testimony provided by Jerome Lockett, a black man who said Christian had “aggressively” threatened him in the park. Among the details: “when I saw that video, I thought, I cannot imagine if he approached her the same way how she may have genuinely been afraid for her life.” He continued, “If I wasn’t who I was, I would of [sic] called the police on that guy too.”

Lockett also says: “My two fellow dog owners have had similar situations with this man, but don’t feel comfortable coming forward because they’re white. They think they’ll be seen as some ‘Karen’ or whatever.” His complete statement can be found on page nine here.

The dispatch from Amy Cooper’s 911 call, which seems to corroborate her explanation that her double reference to Christian’s race to the operator — and the growing hysteria she displayed in the video — was the result of a bad cell phone connection. Listen here:

As a runner in a park where people ignore leash laws, I can testify that it is HARD to be polite when asking someone to follow the fucking city laws and park rules that they are ignoring, especially when trying to hide behind a tree from their rabid dog, who, by the way, "has never acted like this before."

While I'm here, fuck you to the lady who told me to stop backing up when her dog was attacking me. Don't give me instructions. Just leash your god damned dog!

This is a much stronger objection than, "your dog might disturb the birds".

People who unleash their dogs hate their dogs and have no rights.

People who unleash their dogs hate their dogs and have no rights.

Clearly not due process in Amy Cooper's case.

I'm not her court, but if I was, I'd want more evidence than rumors, people who say they know some people, and some guy that saw a video that no one else saw.

So, the video you posted does not show what you're saying it does. He's filming his interactions. There's nothing in that video about "provoking" anyone. He was filming people breaking the rules. I pretty big nerd move, but so the fuck what?

Where's the post of him admitting to "threatening" her? Are you distorting that post in the same way you're distorting the youtube video? Did he "threaten" to report her to some sort of authorities?

Oh wow B is a big fan of leashes. What a shock. Good forbid any creature in the world not have a leash attached! There would be chaos!

No snarky comments here, this is a nightmarish tragedy: