41. Animals: Sandra Herold & Amy Cooper - a podcast by Pink Collar Pod

Hey party people, we are bringing you two ANIMAL related cases this week. Nathalie starts off with the case of Sandra Herold. Sandra adopted a little boy named Travis from a compound near Festus, Missouri. Sandra adored Travis and treated him like he was her own son, the only weird thing about that is Travis was a chimpanzee. Travis was adorable when he was a baby chimp, but he grew up to be about 200 pounds. One day, he escaped from Sandra’s home and Sandra called her friend, Charla Nash, to help get Travis back inside. Travis started to attack Charla and, by the time police arrived, they assumed Charla was dead. As a result of the attack, she lost her hands, nose, eyes, lips, and the bone structure of her face had permanent damage. While Sandra didn’t *technically* break any rules, a new law was passed by Connecticut prohibiting people from having primates over 50 pounds as pets. The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection did not enforce this law for Sandra because they didn’t believe Travis posed a public safety risk...I think we can safely say they were wrong.

Rachel then tells the story of the infamous Amy Cooper. One day in the Ramble in Central Park, Amy let her cocker spaniel run through the park without a leash, this was against the rules of the park. Christian Cooper (no relation to Amy) was out bird watching and he calmly asked Amy to put her dog on a leash, pointing out it was against the rules. Amy flipped out and called the cops, falsely accusing Christian of threatening her and assaulting her. Christian pulled out his phone to record this incident and posted it to his Facebook page. It quickly went viral, amassing millions of views over many different platforms. This accusation could have easily resulted in death by cop, as Amy is a white woman and Christian is a black man. We discuss the history of white women falsely accusing black men of inappropriate or illegal activity. In October of 2020, Amy was charged with falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, which is a class A misdemeanor. These are allegations, the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. 

Rachel's Sources

https://www.centralpark.com/things-to-do/attractions/ramble/

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158742137255229&id=671885228

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/us/central-park-video-dog-video-african-american-trnd/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/amy-cooper-dog-returned-trnd/index.html 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/renisha-mcbride-killer-gets-minimum-17-years-prison-n194366 

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/us/dashboard-camera-video-is-released-from-2013-north-carolina-police-shooting.html 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/where-can-we-be-black-629584/ 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/why-white-women-keep-calling-the-cops-on-black-people-699512/ 

https://www.manhattanda.org/d-a-vance-amy-cooper-charged-in-criminal-court-for-false-report-in-central-park/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_birdwatching_incident#:~:text=On%20July%206%2C%202020%2C%20the,was%20arraigned%20on%20October%2014. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/terinaallen/2020/05/29/3-things-amy-cooper-did-in-central-park-that-destroyed-her-life/?sh=157d4d9e6198 

Nathalie's Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_(chimpanzee)

https://abcnews.go.com/US/sandra-herold-owner-chimp-travis-mauled-charla-nash-dies/story?id=10740652

https://www.courant.com/health/hc-chimp-3-owner-nothing-left-for-me-story.html

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/tag/sandra-herold/

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