A video of a white woman calling the cops on a black man because he asked her to leash her dog in Central Park Monday is drawing outrage on social media.
The footage, posted on Twitter by the man’s sister, begins with the masked dog walker marching toward the man and demanding that he stop filming.
“Please don’t come close to me,” the man, who doesn’t appear on camera, is heard responding several times.
She continues to ask him to stop filming — and then threatens to call 911.
When the man invites her to “please call the cops,” she says: “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”
“Please tell them whatever you like,” he responds.
The dog walker then pulls down her mask as she gets on the phone and says: “I’m in the Ramble and an African American man with a bicycle helmet, he is recording me and threatening my dog.”
She pauses before repeating that “there is an African American man. He is recording me and threatening my dog.”
After an other pause, the woman appears suddenly shaken up as she cries: “I’m sorry, I can’t hear!”
“I’m being threatened by a man in the Ramble, please send the cops immediately.”
Throughout the clip, the woman is seen grabbing her struggling dog by a neck harness and holding a leash, which she eventually attaches to the harness.
At that point, the man says “thank you” and stops filming.
An NYPD spokeswoman said cops were called to the Ramble, a 36-acre woodland retreat between 73rd and 78th Streets, at around 8:10 a.m. for a report of an assault.
“Upon arrival, police determined two individuals had engaged in a verbal dispute,” Sergeant Mary Frances O’Donnell said, adding that no arrests or summonses were issued and that “both parties went on their way.”
Central Park rules state that dogs must be leashed at all times in the Ramble.
Melody Cooper, the woman who posted the video, said her brother, an avid birdwatcher, had noticed the dog roaming free and asked the woman to put the pup on a leash.
He began filming “because she refused to put her dog on a leash and he sensed she was going to go full on Karen. And she did,” Cooper tweeted, referring to the social media shorthand for white women who call the cops on black neighbors over harmless incidents.
“As soon as she leashed the dog, he said thank you stopped filming and went about his business. This kind of entitlement dog walking happens weekly in the Ramble,” Cooper added.
Her post had been shared more than 37,000 times by Monday evening, with several commentators slamming the woman in the video.
“She tried to get him murdered. She need to go straight to prison,” one person wrote.
The woman was identified by name in the comments, and an Instagram account linked to that person was flooded with messages about the incident. The account later appeared to have been deleted.
Additional reporting by Joe Marino
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