Last week, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office dropped its case against Amy Cooper, a white woman who called the police on a Black man who was birding in Central Park in May 2020.
In exchange, Cooper completed five sessions of therapy, which Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon characterized as “an alternative, restorative justice resolution; designed not just to punish, but to educate and promote community healing.”
However, advocates of restorative justice angrily pushed back, arguing that this was a misleading co-optation of the term and argued that the process would ultimately undermine community healing.
“I can say with certainty that the five therapy sessions described in the media are not restorative justice by any definition,” wrote Mika Dashman, who founded the Restorative Justice Initiative.
Dashman explained that as an alternative to criminal justice, restorative justice “invites everyone impacted by conflict and/or harm to develop a shared understanding of both the root causes and the effects.”
In this case, said Dashman, a restorative justice scenario would have included Christian Cooper, the birder on whom Amy Cooper called the police as a form of racial intimidation.
In a statement Monday, Emily Tuttle, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney, noted that Amy Cooper had participated in a “comprehensive program involving psychoeducation and therapy services.”
“While it may have not have been a Restorative Justice session in the traditional sense,” wrote Tuttle, “we believe this was a restorative resolution, which focused on addressing and confronting racial bias.”
As a white woman, Amy Cooper was subjected to enormous criticism for inviting potential police violence against a Black man who simply asked her to keep her dog leashed. Christian Cooper ultimately chose not to press charges, saying of Amy Cooper, “Any of us can make — not necessarily a racist mistake, but a mistake.”
But Kay Pranis, a nationally recognized advocate for restorative justice, said that in order to be meaningful, the process has to go beyond the individuals in the case.
“What role did the community play in Amy thinking that this would work?” asked Pranis. “This idea of calling the police and claiming that a Black man was threatening her, this didn't happen in a vacuum, and we have to pay attention to what's the larger context and what's the accountability of the community in a situation like this.”
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On Twitter, Amy Cooper's lawyer, Robert Barnes, thanked the D.A.’s office for “a thorough and honest inquiry,” and added, “Others rushed to the wrong conclusion based on inadequate investigation & they may yet face legal consequences."
Shailly Agnihotri, who has practiced criminal law on both sides of the system, as both a prosecutor and public defender, said the outcome in the Amy Cooper case “reeks of unfairness.”
Agnihotri now runs the Restorative Center in Newburgh, NY, and believes the District Attorney’s decision to drop the charges without community engagement around the case will only contribute to the mistrust and cynicism within communities of color, because it compounded a view that there are different results for privileged white people.
“There is a perception that these diversion programs offered as a pathway to restorative justice are amplifying the inequalities that exist in the criminal justice system so that the true function of restorative justice is not served,” Agnihotri said.
Arun Venugopal is the Senior Reporter for WNYC’s Race & Justice Unit where he leads our coverage of hate, bias and racial reconciliation for Gothamist/WNYC.
