RFK Jr Admits to Dumping Bear Carcass in New York’s Central Park
Robert F Kennedy Jr has recounted dumping a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park in 2014.
The clip, posted on the X account on Sunday, shows the independent presidential candidate describing to American actress Roseanne Barr the incident that left New Yorkers in shock 10 years ago.
Mr Kennedy said a woman killed the bear with her car as he was driving out of town, and he loaded it into his truck with the intention of eating it.
He shared the anecdote when the New Yorker magazine published an article about the incident on Monday.
Based on New YorkerMr Kennedy was “delighted” to spot the bear while on a falconry trip in the Hudson River Valley.
An image in the article shows Mr Kennedy grimacing as he puts his hand in the dead bear’s mouth after he loads the bear’s body into the trunk of his car.
The magazine quoted an unnamed source as saying Mr Kennedy “thought it would be funny to make it look like a lost cyclist” had killed it.
The content of this account is quite similar to the content that Mr. Kennedy gave on Sunday.
In his video, Mr. Kennedy told Barr that he was driving falcon hunting near Goshen, New York, in 2014 when the bear was killed.
“I was going to skin the bear… and I was going to put the meat in the freezer,” he said. “And you can do that in New York state: Get a bear tag for a bear that was killed by a car.”
New York state allows roadkill removal, but requires notification to authorities. Mr. Kennedy apparently did not do so.
Instead, he said he continued on to his falconry event, then went to dinner at Peter Luger Steakhouse in New York City, about 75 miles (121km) south of Goshen.
“By the end of dinner, it was getting late and I realized I couldn’t go home,” Kennedy said. “I had to go to the airport, and the bear was in my car, and I didn’t want to leave the bear in the car because that would be bad.”
He said that was when he realized there had been a series of bicycle accidents in New York and he had an old bicycle in his car.
“We thought the person who found it would find it funny,” he said.
“The next day… it was on every TV channel. It was on the front page of every newspaper and I turned on the TV and there was yellow tape about a mile long and 20 police cars, helicopters flying, and I was like, ‘Oh my God. What have I done?'”
He later noted that a New Yorker fact-checker called him and asked if he was involved, which appears to have prompted him to release the video.
The bear’s body was discovered by a woman walking her dog, the New York Times said in the article. Story of 2014. The body was found under some bushes and a bicycle was left behind.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation told the BBC on Monday that an investigation determined the bear died in a high-speed collision. The department added that it could not prosecute cases that happened more than a year ago.
The 2014 Times article was written by one of Mr Kennedy’s relatives – Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former president John F Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy’s story comes as support for his presidential campaign has dropped to single digits in polls since Kamala Harris entered the race for the Democratic nomination.
He asserted that he had no intention of ending his presidential bid.