Christian Cooper Reflects on Central Park Incident

CHRISTIAN COOPER, EDITOR, WRITER, BOARD MEMBER OF NYC AUDUBON: Well, I was very nervous because no one wants to have to deal with the police under a cloud of suspicion, I don’t care what race you are, let alone when you’re a black man. So, it made me nervous. My mind did not fly to the ultimate possible bad outcome, which would have been, you know, me getting killed somehow in a confrontation with the police. My mind didn’t go there. I was just sort of like, oh, boy. I’m going to have some explaining to do, if and when the cops get here. But I don’t know, I was just — it took me aback when it happened, because up until that point it was just a confrontation between a birder and a dog walker, which sorry to say, is fairly standard in the ramble, that part of Central Park. But then she just took to that dark place and went racial with it and injected that element into what — into the conflict between us. And that took me aback. And that point, I was sort of, I just had to take a mental breath and say, whoa, OK, we’re going there. So, what does it mean? What do — I’m presented with the choice now, what do I do? Do I capitulate to this attempted racial intimidation or do I keep doing what I’m doing? Because I was pretty adamant I was going to keep reporting with the iPhone until that dog was on the leash. And I decided, you know, I’m not, I can’t give into this. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m going to do whether I was black, brown, white, yellow, green, I’m going to keep recording and she’s going to have to do what she thinking she has to do.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And fortunately, as you said, you all left and there was no interaction with the police. And, Melody, you’re Christian’s sister. And I’m really fascinated because, you know, your family history is one of protest. You have been brought up to stand up for your rights, stand up for people’s rights, and essentially not back down. And I wonder how much of that went into your thinking about posting it. And what were you thinking when you posted? Did you even ever think that this would be the seminal moment that the world is reacting to as well, as the George Floyd killing?

MELODY COOPER, FILM AND TV WRITER: I didn’t expect it to go viral the way it did. I mean, it’s had over 44 million views. But I did know that Twitter and in particular Black Twitter has power in identifying people and passing along a message. And I have reposted this kind of videos that others have posted online. I’ve retweeted them in anger. And when I — I was very taken aback when I saw my brother’s video because it hit home and it was my own brother. And I — unlike Chris, I did see, mind did leap immediately to how the police might arrive and how they might throw him down and maybe harm him or kill him.