A decade-long thriller of a useless bear cub that was found in New York’s Central Park has been solved after presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. admitted to dumping the carcass there in 2014 as a part of what he views as an elaborate prank.
Kennedy posted a video of his confession on his X account Sunday. Within the three-minute video, the unbiased presidential candidate tells comic Roseanne Barr the weird particulars of his encounter with a black bear cub. Kennedy says he was driving upstate when a van in entrance of him struck a black bear cub within the highway and killed it.
“So, I pulled over, picked up the bear, and put him behind my van,” Kennedy advised Barr. “I used to be going to pores and skin the bear. It was in excellent situation, and I used to be going to place the meat in my fridge.”
As an alternative, Kennedy says he continued along with his plans for the day, which included a prolonged falconry outing close to Goshen in Upstate New York, adopted by a steak dinner at a widely known restaurant in Brooklyn.
“We went hawking, and I had the bear in my automotive,” Kennedy advised Barr as she calmly sipped from a mug. “We had a very good day, and we went late. We had been catching quite a lot of sport. Folks actually cherished it, so we stayed late.”
Kennedy defined how he was crunched for time and needed to go straight from looking close to Goshen to New York Metropolis for a dinner at Peter Luger Steak Home, with the useless cub nonetheless stashed in his car.
“On the finish of the dinner, it went late, and I noticed I couldn’t go dwelling. I needed to go to the airport,” Kennedy mentioned. “I didn’t wish to depart the bear in my automotive as a result of that might have been dangerous.”
At this level, the Kennedy scion claimed he channeled his interior “redneck” and hatched a plan. Bike lanes had not too long ago been put in all through NYC, and bike accidents had been outstanding within the information.
“A few individuals had gotten killed, and it was daily that individuals had been badly injured. Daily, it was within the press,” Kennedy mentioned. “I wasn’t consuming, in fact, however individuals had been consuming with me who thought this was a good suggestion.”
Kennedy then used an previous bicycle that was additionally, one way or the other, in his automotive to stage an accident in Central Park.
“We’ll make it appear like he received hit by the bike,” Kennedy mentioned, laughing. “Will probably be humorous for individuals.”
In line with a 2014 New York Occasions article, 79-year-old Florence Slatkin discovered the useless bear whereas strolling her canine in Central Park. Slatkin, who didn’t seem amused by the useless bear cub, known as 911.
“The mouth was open, and it regarded bloody,” Slatkin advised reporters in October 2014. “At first, I believed it was a raccoon.”
The invention set off an investigation by the NYPD.
“The subsequent day, it was on each tv station,” Kennedy mentioned. “It was on the entrance web page of each paper. I turned on the TV, and there was a mile of yellow tape and 20 cop automobiles. There have been helicopters flying over it … There have been individuals in Tyvek fits lifting up the bike. They had been saying they had been going to take this as much as Albany to get it fingerprinted. I used to be apprehensive as a result of my prints had been throughout that bike.”
Kennedy didn’t instantly fess as much as the macabre sensible joke. It took him 10 years to finally come clear in a recorded dialog with Barr. He additionally posted the video simply in the future earlier than an article about his presidential marketing campaign appeared in The New Yorker; it additionally contained the story.
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Though Kennedy assured Barr that “you will get a bear tag for roadkill” in New York (a standard observe in lots of states), the New York Division of Environmental Conservation doesn’t specify necessities for possessing a black bear carcass that was hit by a automotive. As an alternative, the DEC advised information retailers that his actions would have probably incurred at the very least a $250 tremendous on the time for “the unlawful possession of a bear with out a tag or allow and unlawful disposal of a bear.” The statue of limitations has since expired, which implies Kennedy gained’t be cited. The DEC additionally outlines 4 methods to legally dispose of untamed animal carcasses on the whole, none of which contain stashing them within the bushes of Central Park.
