The dog was examined by his veterinarian, “who determined that he was in good health,” the statement said. Various law enforcement agencies in New York have refused to take the dog into custody, the shelter said.
“Therefore, in accordance with the yields received from the law, we have now complied with the owner’s request for the return of the dog,” the statement said.
Incident in the park
On May 25, Amy Cooper called police on Christian Cooper (irrelevant) during a meeting attended by her unrestrained dog. Amy Cooper was walking the dog while Christian Cooper watched the birds in a wooded area of Central Park called the Ramble. They both told CNN that their dispute began because her dog was not on a leash, contrary to Ramble’s rules, according to the park’s website.
Christian Cooper recorded a video of part of their meeting and posted it on Facebook, where it has been shared thousands of times since then and has become a trendy topic on Twitter. In the video, he is mostly silent as she eerily tells the police to threaten her and her dog.
“I take photos and call the cops,” Amy Cooper is heard saying in the video. “I’ll tell them an African-American is threatening my life.”
While on the phone, her dog seems to strain and try to free herself as she tries to restrain him with her collar. After the incident, her dog was handed over to a shelter where he was adopted a few years ago.
In comments to CNN as the video spread, Amy Cooper said she wanted to “publicly apologize to everyone.”
“I’m not a racist. I didn’t want to harm that man in any way,” she said, adding that it also meant no harm to the African-American community.
Christian Cooper told Don Lemon for CNN that he accepted her apology.
“I think her apology is sincere,” Cooper said. “I’m not sure she recognized in that apology that, although she may not be or considers herself a racist, that particular act was definitely racist.”
But Christian Cooper also said he is disturbed by the fact that people are making death threats against Amy Cooper, which he called horrific.
“It seems strange to me that the people who were upset … that she tried to bring down the death of a police officer on my head, then turned around and tried to put death threats on my head. Where is the logic in that?” He said. “Where does that make any sense?”
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