Credit: Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner

This anti-discrimination act has an amusingly appropriate name.

Back in May, a woman by the name of Amy Cooper was letting her dog run free in Central Park. When Christian Cooper (no relation), a black man, politely asked her to put her dog on a leash as the park requires, she called the police and told them “there is an African American man threatening my life.” For this, Amy Cooper was ostracized on the internet and dubbed “the Central Park Karen” for her rude, discriminatory behavior, and was also charged with falsely reporting an incident. Unfortunately, people using the threat of 911 as a means of racial discrimination is a somewhat common occurrence, and one lawmaker has had enough.

Shamann Walton, a lawmaker in San Francisco, California, has proposed a new act to punish those who make false or exaggerated 911 calls for discriminatory purposes. This new act is titled “Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies.” What’s that spell? Yep, “CAREN.” How apropo.

Racist 911 calls are unacceptable that's why I'm introducing the CAREN Act at today’s SF Board of Supervisors meeting. This is the CAREN we need. Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies. #CARENact #sanfrancisco

— Shamann Walton (@shamannwalton) July 7, 2020

According to the San Francisco Chronicle‘s read-over of the act’s first draft, the CAREN Act will “make it unlawful for an individual to contact law enforcement solely to discriminate on the basis of a person’s race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” The San Francisco police code would also be updated to make it illegal to “fabricate false racially biased emergency reports.”

False 911 calls are already illegal in general in California, but if the CAREN Act were ratified, a discriminatory false 911 call would be upgraded to a hate crime.