“It was on every channel”
Kennedy confesses to bizarre baby bear staging
05.08.2024, 08:20
Ten years ago, a dead bear cub was found in New York’s Central Park. What no one could have guessed at the time: a presidential candidate from the Kennedy clan confessed that he had left the animal there.
Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is causing a stir with an unusual revelation. In a video published on the X platform, Kennedy admits to having placed a dead bear in New York’s Central Park about ten years ago. According to his account, he initially took the bear with him after it had been run over by another vehicle to dispose of it. However, after dinner in New York, he left the carcass in the park and used an old bicycle to stage the scene as if the animal had been hit by a car.
Kennedy reports in the video that he wanted to meet up with a group for falconry in the Hudson Valley in New York State. On the way there, an accident occurred: a vehicle in front of him hit the bear, killing the animal. It was a young bear, Kennedy adds. He then loaded the dead animal into his van so that he could later remove the skin and “put the meat in my refrigerator.” This is permitted in the state.
After the hunt, however, he drove to a dinner party. It got so late that he didn’t have time to drive home and had to go to the airport. Kennedy says he didn’t want to leave the bear in the van. So he came up with an idea how to get rid of the animal. According to him, he had an old bicycle in the van.
“Oh my God, what have I done?”
“Let’s put the bear in Central Park and make it look like it was hit by a bike.” That’s what he and his companions, who had been drinking alcohol, did. Kennedy says he himself hadn’t drunk anything. “The next day, it was on every TV channel. It was on every front page.” In a TV report, he saw how an area in Central Park was cordoned off, that helicopters and patrol cars were in use. He just thought, “Oh my God, what have I done?” Kennedy says he was initially worried that his fingerprints would be found on the bike. But nothing happened for a decade. In 2014, a dead bear cub was actually found in Central Park.
Kennedy has indicated that he wants to use this revelation to pre-empt a planned publication by the New Yorker magazine. Neither his campaign nor the New Yorker have yet responded to a Reuters request for comment.
Kennedy comes from the American political dynasty of the same name. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, he is favored by eight percent of voters and is considered to have no chance. However, since every vote may count in the November election, his participation could be a problem for the Republican and Democratic candidates, even if Kennedy would only lure away a few voters from them.