Coyner talks Jay Jones controversy in interview
Coyner says Jones told her in a 2020 phone call that a few police officers dying would stop them from killing other people.
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Coyner says Jones told her in a 2020 phone call that a few police officers dying would stop them from killing other people
Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Chesterfield, sat down with Virginia Scope on Monday morning to discuss the controversy surrounding text messages sent to her in 2022 by Virginia’s Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones. In the conversation with Virginia Scope, Coyner talked about what actions she took when she received the texts and why it took years for them to become public. She also discussed previous conversations with Jones in which she said that he told her in 2020 that if a few police officers died, then maybe they would stop killing people. Jones denies he said this.
The National Review first broke news of the texts and phone call between Jones and Coyner on Friday. In the text conversation, Jones tells Coyner that if he were with former Republican House Speaker Todd, Pol Pot, and Hitler, and only had two bullets, he would shoot Gilbert twice.
The National Review also detailed a phone call between Coyner and Jones that took place during the text conversation. Coyner recounted the conversation with Virginia Scope on Monday morning.
From Coyner: “Back in 2022, I received a text message, and Jay had sent me the text message, and then he realized immediately it was meant for Mark, and he said sorry. And rather than stop, he continued on talking about Todd Gilbert, and in a way that made me uncomfortable with him — saying that Todd Gilbert should be shot — if he had two bullets, he would use both of them every time on Todd Gilbert, instead of some really monstrous, horrible people in history. I pushed back, and then he called to basically reiterate why Todd Gilbert was such a horrible person on public policy, and why he’s bad for people, and peppering me with questions about ‘name a time when people make actual change on public policy without feeling personal pain,’ and I wouldn’t agree with that.”
Coyner, when describing her call with Jones, said her told her that if Gilbert’s wife had to experience her children dying, then maybe the speaker would consider a change in gun policy.
The text conversation continued after the phone call. “You were talking about [hoping] Jennifer Gilbert’s children would die,” Coyner wrote to him.
“Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy,” Jones responded.
When asked what Jones was referencing when he said “I’ve told you this before,” Coyner said it goes back to a heated phone call in 2020 about removing qualified immunity protections for law enforcement. (Qualified immunity protects police officers from civil lawsuits.)