CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jahana Hayes

Interview

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And tonight Congresswoman Jahana Hayes joins us now to discuss all of this. She is a Democrat from Connecticut and deputy whip for the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

First, Congresswoman, thank you for coming on the show, for sharing your time with us. I want to ask you about this latest shooting of an unarmed black man in Virginia. Isaiah Brown's family attorney claims the deputy mistook Brown's phone for a gun before shooting him 10 times. We're still waiting for more information and evidence to back all of this up. But I want to get your reaction to what we've seen and heard so far in the body cam footage and 911 call.

[20:25:03]

REP. JAHANA HAYES (D-CT): Well, thank you for having me, and I wasn't even aware of this most recent shooting. I have to say that the frequency that we're seeing, unarmed black men killed by police, is jarring. But on a case-by-case basis, I hadn't even -- I wasn't even aware of this last incident that you just showed.

BROWN: Well, I know that you are aware of one case and that of course is the George Floyd case and what happened recently with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin who was convicted in the murder of George Floyd. And you released this statement following the verdict. You said in part, "Today justice was articulated through accountability. Today is a moment of reflection for our entire country. Tomorrow we resume the work and recommit ourselves towards building a more just nation."

So where exactly does this country go from here? What is the next step?

HAYES: I have to say, I didn't even realize I was internalizing that I was preparing for a not guilty verdict. I didn't even realize that -- but leading up to it, I could just was a range of emotions. So when the guilty verdict came out, there was just a moment of reflection where I realized that so many people in this country just expect for even though we see something on camera, even though we're waiting for the verdict to be had, that none of that will matter.

Moving forward, I think that's why the work that we do is so important. We have to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act for reform and training and accountability to make sure that there is an amicable relationship and a working relationship between law enforcement and our communities. And I say that from a very intimate perspective. I have three black sons and my husband is 25 years on the police force.

So I don't take any of this work lightly. I know how difficult his work is but as a mother, I can't imagine the pain of losing a child to this kind of violence. BROWN: So if you would, to ask you a more personal questions on that

note, what is it like for you? What has it been like for you watching these videos, unarmed black men being shot by police as a mother of three sons. What is that like for you? What does it feel like?

HAYES: It's difficult. It's very difficult to articulate. This was actually a conversation I just recently had with my staff. I said, I am a mother. I am a mother of black sons. It is impossible for me to explain to you what this feels like. One of the things that I worry about is in the time that it takes for my children to identify themselves or even my husband to identify that he is law enforcement, off duty holding a firearm or carrying a gun, in the seconds that it takes in this culture that we are in, there could be an incident of violence.

So those are the types of things that are deeply disturbing to me. And again just the frequency with which we're seeing these incidents happening. It's almost on a daily basis that -- I mean, we couldn't get through the George Floyd trial, we were waiting for the verdict when the Daunte Wright case came up. It just -- the residual trauma that is coming as a result of this is just unbearable.

We have to pass justice in policing to offer the proper training, to reform our law enforcement departments, to give them the support that they need and to rebuild the trust that we have within our communities.

BROWN: I want to ask you about guns before we let you go. The U.S. has seen more than 45 mass shootings since the middle of March. So far, though, no gun reform laws passed in Congress. When will this country see bipartisan gun reform legislation become law?

HAYES: We have to do it now. It's long past time that this needs to happen. Any conversation about commonsense gun reform is seen as an affront to Second Amendment rights. I support the Second Amendment. I think that legal gun owners should be able to do that responsibly. But if you're going to own a gun, you have to store it responsibly. You have to pass background checks.

We have to hold people to -- there's a mandate right now to make sure that we are keeping our communities safe, and we have to be able to pass legislation in a bipartisan way. People should not have to choose between supporting the Second Amendment or keeping our community safe. We can do both. It is not a binary choice. And we have to have a comprehensive approach. In 2021, we've already had 159 mass shootings. That's 159 too many. And last year 43,000 people killed as a result of gun violence. Anybody who sees this as politics is not looking at -- is not seeing what I'm seeing.

[20:30:04]

We have to address this and we have to do it now. We currently don't event collect data on school shootings because people say, you know, that's an attack on Second Amendment rights. It is not. These are what responsible gun owners want, 90 percent of the people in this country agree with background checks. This should be bipartisan and it has to happen now.

BROWN: Yes, you're citing that Quinnipiac poll that just came out recently.

All right, Congresswoman Jahana Hayes, thank you for the discussion. We appreciate it.

HAYES: Thanks for having me.

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