text: It’d be pretty hard to forget Amy Cooper. In May 2020, the white woman called 911 on a Black bird-watcher and falsely told the dispatcher she was being threatened. The victim, Christian Cooper (no relation), captured the incident on camera.
  The confrontation went viral the same weekend of George Floyd’s death and showed the white woman telling the 911 operator that an “African American man” was causing her to fear for her safety. Christian had simply asked her to place her dog on a leash in an area of the park that required dogs to be leashed.
  At the time, Amy’s employer, an investment management company called Franklin Templeton, took swift action to condemn her behavior. Within 24 hours, she was fired. “Following our internal review of the incident in Central Park yesterday, we have made the decision to terminate the employee involved, effective immediately,” they said in a statement. “We do not tolerate racism of any kind at Franklin Templeton,” they added.
  As previously reported by REVOLT, after being fired for the Central Park incident, Amy sued her former employer for racial bias. Franklin Templeton responded, “We believe the circumstances of the situation speak for themselves and that the company responded appropriately. We will defend against these baseless claims.”
  Yesterday (Sept. 21), U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams denied claims that Amy’s former employer defamed her. Abrams added that the woman also could not prove that she was fired due to her race or gender. Amy previously stated that after the incident, her “personal and professional life” was “destroyed.”
  Since the unfavorable Central Park encounter, Christian has landed a bird-watching show on National Geographic. In May 2022, the network released a teaser about the upcoming show: “Whether braving stormy seas in Alaska for puffins, trekking into rainforests in Puerto Rico for parrots, or scaling a bridge in Manhattan for a peregrine falcon, he does whatever it takes to learn about these extraordinary feathered creatures and show us the remarkable world in the sky above.”