Amy Cooper “Central Park Karen” Case Dismissed

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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39 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    I truly appreciate the DA showing such willingness to be lenient to a white woman. I wonder if such leniency colors all his decisions.Report

    • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      DA had to strongly push to get this far. Victim didn’t want to do anything, didn’t cooperate, and even wrote an op-ed saying it was a mistake.

      Sounds like the cops at the scene did a good job since she fessed up at that point.Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Dark Matter says:

        How often does a confession from the perpetrator, and uncooperative witnesses lead to dismissed charges?

        My take, this conviction would not be a feather in his cap, so he was happy to play it down.Report

        • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

          Charges weren’t dismissed, they made a deal.

          I think these guys min-max time rather than victory. Making a deal is quick, fighting in court is not.

          And again, he was the only one pushing for anything so my expectation is, if anything, he was virtue signaling the other way.

          My brother in law had a cop tell him they liked being pulled in because the alternatives were worse and their job is to defuse this sort of thing.

          I’ve called the police on my neighbors. They’ve called on me. One of my ex-relatives has done WAY more than that in terms of falsely trying to get the cops spun up. This kind of super-heated emotional crap is where the police live and they’re VERY used to being weaponized.

          It’s why I keep saying any justice system needs to be able to deal with false reporting and just trusting everyone to tell the truth is nuts.

          She backed off with the first responders and the victim thought firing her was more than enough. I’m surprised she didn’t get a pass.Report

          • Oscar Gordon in reply to Dark Matter says:

            My point is that a lot of people get hooked up by the police and DAs for violations that were effectively harmless (no victim except malum prohibitum) and don’t get nice, diversionary deals.

            So is this DA known to seek diversion over conviction? How often does he extend that option to folks who are not well to do white women? If he’s someone who seeks rehabilitation/restoration over punishment, that’s awesome.

            But my cynical nature makes it hard to grant that off the bat.Report

            • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

              My point is that a lot of people get hooked up by the police and DAs for violations that were effectively harmless… don’t get nice, diversionary deals.

              Percentage-wise your “a lot” probably rounds to zero.

              So is this DA known to seek diversion over conviction? How often does he extend that option to folks who are not well to do white women? … But my cynical nature makes it hard to grant that off the bat.

              IMHO you’re not being cynical enough.

              My expectation is false reporting happens a lot and it’s almost never punished. Jussie Smollett took it WAY further and had almost nothing happen to him.

              Here the DA is the only person pushing for anything to happen. Fitting him for a bad guy hat when this is almost never punished, especially if the victim doesn’t want it, is probably unwarranted.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Dark Matter says:

                I’m betting it isn’t zero, but if you got a good source to prove me wrong…

                I’m not just looking at false reporting (although I agree that false reporting should get punished a lot more), I’m looking at all malum prohibitum type offenses.

                Get popped for possession, do you get offered diversion and dismissal as a matter of course, or do you get time and fines?

                What about other ‘victimless crimes’?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                You’re really reaching by trying to compare this to possession.

                What we have is two people arguing over dog poop and the cops falsely being called.

                By false reporting standards this wasn’t very bad nor very determined… and we normally don’t do anything about false reporting a lot worse than this.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Dark Matter says:

                So are you saying that simple drug possession is more bad than falsely reporting that a person threatened you?Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                “more bad” is an ethical judgement.

                I’m pointing out we have not declared “War” on false reporting and don’t normally do anything, much less imprison people for decades.

                IMHO the expected result for her crime is roughly zero. Ergo suggesting the DA went easy on her because of her race is nonsense because the DA went really hard on her.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Dark Matter says:

                Conceded.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                I’m betting it isn’t zero, but if you got a good source to prove me wrong…

                I can’t find any numbers for anyone actually convicted of this. My general impression is “rounds to zero” is a good guess.Report

        • Brent F in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

          Uncooperative witnesses are the main way I win cases. Its the usual way these things end.Report

  2. Marchmaine says:

    “Cooper was then sent to the Critical Therapy Center where she was provided with “psychoeducation and therapy services” about racial equity that were designed for “introspection and progress.” ”

    Zoinks. We write sentences like this in public now.Report

  3. Damon says:

    Funny how Buzzfeed made no mention of Christian Cooper threat against her dog. He even admitted it.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    If I had to guess, I’d say that there’s some weird logic on the part of The State that goes like this:

    She was relying on the cops showing up and being racist against the black dude.
    Our cops are not racist.
    If our cops had shown up they’d have seen the situation for what it was and acted appropriately and NOT SHOT ANYBODY.
    Therefore she was not issuing an *ACTUAL* threat against this guy.

    Now since she was thinking that she was issuing an actual threat, she needs to be reeducated on that fact.
    We have sent her to class to learn new things.

    Situation resolved.

    I mean, if I had to guess what the logic was.Report

    • Greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

      Funnily enough when somebody commits a DUI they get sent to treatment for their alcohol problem. That does seem logical.

      Restorative Justice is often seen as one alt to our current cop /jail system by people who want reform.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Greginak says:

        Sure, but I’m pretty sure that The Gummint doesn’t want to acknowledge that calling the police on an innocent black dude is a threat to the innocent black dude.Report

        • greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

          I think a false report is bad no matter what. If you want crim justice reform it is going to look like education, pretrial diversion and Restorative Justice.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to greginak says:

            Oh, indeed, it *IS* bad.

            But was the innocent black guy’s life in danger? Of course not. The cops are *GOOD*.

            Indeed, they’re the thin blue line that keeps us, all of us, safe.Report

            • Greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

              Ummm yeah… What an incisive contribution to the discourse.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Greginak says:

                It has to do with whether The State would want to acknowledge that an obviously innocent black guy has anything to fear from the cops when they show up.

                If you see The State not wanting to acknowledge that as relevant to the discourse, you might see my discussion of the cops being *GOOD* as a gentle tweaking of The State’s position.

                If you don’t see The State’s acknowledgement of whether there is an implied threat to an innocent black guy in calling the cops to show up as relevant to any point I may be making, I imagine that this entire comment thread is confusing to you and seeing me as wanting to talk about the threats posed by the police to innocent people probably comes across as me just making squawking sounds very loudly.Report

              • Greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

                No Jay you come across as obtuse and hectoring. False reports are wrong and against the law even if we had the cops we want instead of what we have. The gov doesn’t have to admit cops are a danger for just that reason. If you want CJ reform then applaud when good things happen and work to spread that to people who don’t get those same advantages.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Greginak says:

                Exactly. If this had gone to trial, proof that the cops were not, in fact, a threat, or that Karen didn’t think the cops were a threat — both likely inadmissible — would not be a defense. And even really nice cops could, very gently and politely, arrest the guy if, for whatever reason (we can’t assume telepathic cops), they bought Karen’s story. That they wouldn’t have opened up a serious can of whoop-ass on the guy wouldn’t help Karen in the least.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Greginak says:

                So… is the argument that this was an example of CJ reform?

                For the record, I do not see it that way.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird says:

                No, quite the opposite. But then you’d have to read what people actually said.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci says:

                If you want crim justice reform it is going to look like education, pretrial diversion and Restorative Justice.

                And Restorative Justice is often seen as one alt to our current cop /jail system by people who want reform.

                Please explain to me how this is an example of the opposite of CJ reform.Report

              • Greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

                CJ reform is all about ways to divert people away from cops or prison. Pre trial diversion /treatments are a way for people to avoid jail. They are really common. I’ll admit to having worked in”reeducation camps ” myself. Used to work in a substance abuse treatment facility. Most of our clients had dui’s, child abuse or dv. All drug involved. Would you prefer those people in jail?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Greginak says:

                Most of our clients had dui’s, child abuse or dv. All drug involved. Would you prefer those people in jail?

                If sufficiently privileged ones (or insufficiently disprivileged ones) ended up in class and sufficiently disprivileged ones ended up in prison, then these are examples of a lot of things, I suppose.

                But if there is “disparate impact”, I wouldn’t use it as an example of “justice”.

                Even if I liked it happening to this or that example.Report

              • Greginak in reply to Jaybird says:

                Lol. You got the lingo. It was at an Alaska Native Corp. Almost everybody was poor or working class. Most were indigenous.

                If you want CJ reform then more treatment facilities, more MH care, more social services are what you want.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Greginak says:

                Yeah, I’d agree with that.

                Which brings us to the Karen Case that this post is talking about.Report

              • Dark Matter in reply to Jaybird says:

                You’re making the same mistake she did, i.e. assuming that what the media shows is the rule and not the exception.Report

  5. greginak says:

    This likely a good outcome. To Americans want blood and love harsh punishment. Did race lead to her getting classes instead of sitting in Rikers Island… Certainly. It would be better if POC were given chances at pretrial diversion. But this is better then more people in jail. She is she unlikely to be a threat and has suffered a lot of non jail pain. Let’s just let everybody get this kind of treatment.Report

  6. What does

    Others rushed to the wrong conclusion based on inadequate investigation & they may yet face legal consequences.

    mean? It sure reads like “If you express the opinion that my client should have been prosecuted, we’ll sue you.”Report

  7. Kolohe says:

    For the record, Robert Barnes is a grade A a**hole, and doesn’t appear to me, as an outsider, to be a smart of a lawyer as he thinks he is.Report