In the video Mr. Cooper recorded, after Ms. Cooper refused to follow park rules and leash her dog, he asked her to keep her distance.
Within 24 hours, she had lost her job as an investment manager at Franklin Templeton; members of New York State’s legislature introduced a bill that would make filing certain false reports actionable as hate crimes; a neighborhood group, the Central Park South Civic Association, called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to impose a lifetime ban from the park “on this lady for her deliberate, racial misleading of law enforcement.”
In the most forgiving interpretation of these events, Ms. Cooper didn’t understand the possible consequences of her actions — that calling the police to settle an argument between a white woman and a black man in 2020 could result in his injury or death.
Franklin Templeton fired Ms. Cooper, the company proclaimed, because it “doesn’t tolerate racism of any kind,’’ sanctimoniously turning a crisis into an opportunity to showcase values.
Two years ago, New York City’s police department invested $4.5 million in implicit bias training for officers, again without any evidence that it might succeed.
