A New York woman dubbed the “Ultimate Karen” has been placed on leave and forced to “voluntarily surrender” her pet after being captured calling the cops on a “threatening” black man who merely asked that she leash her dog.
Shared on social media on Monday and set in Central Park, the video opens with a visibly-upset woman walking toward the camera, asking the man filming to “please stop.” The situation quickly escalates when he refuses, with the woman vowing to call the police and “tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”
“There is a man, an African American… he is recording me and threatening me and my dog,” she is heard telling the 911 dispatcher, becoming frantic as she shouts: “I am being threatened by a man!”
The clip went viral after it was shared online by Melody Cooper, a writer and director for HBO whose brother, Christian, captured the footage. At no point in the video is the woman threatened, with Cooper explaining the whole incident began after her brother “politely [asked]” that the woman put her dog on a leash – as the park mandates.
While Cooper says the woman eventually leashed her pet and left without incident, the internet was not so willing to forgive and forget, with netizens quickly “doxxing” the dog-walker – or outing her identity online – as countless others lambasted the woman across social media. Some deemed her the quintessential “Karen” – the type of middle-aged suburbanite woman who regularly demands to speak to the manager – while others shredded her for “racism,” arguing her fraudulent call to the police put Cooper’s life in danger.
Many simply took pity on the woman’s “poor dog,” however, which she roughly jerked around by the collar throughout the controversial video, prompting one critic to observe: “When you are too invested in bigotry that you willingly choke your own dog.”
Ever-resourceful, the internet hive mind was apparently able to pinpoint the animal shelter from which the dog was adopted, prompting the rescue service to also issue a statement noting that the woman had “voluntarily surrendered the dog” while the park episode is “being addressed.”
Some netizens took things to the next level, even reaching out to the woman’s purported employer, investment firm Franklin Templeton. While the company did not confirm the woman’s name – Amy Cooper, according to netizens (no relation to Melody or Christian) – it did issue a statement on Twitter noting that an employee had been “put on administrative leave” following an unspecified “incident.”
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