Sharpton: Shooting deaths 'a real crisis' in Chicago

>>> a reward for information in the sleiaying of a chicago teenager is at $40,000. there was a march saturday in memory of hadiya pendleton. the 15-year-old was shot and killed tuesday in a park with her friends. i want to bring in reverend al sharpton , host of msnbc's "politics nation." also president of the national action network as well. let's talk about hadiya first. recently got back from washington. she just performed at president obama 's inauguration. for folks who don't know the story, who aren't familiar with this little girl , what can you tell us?

>> 15 years old, honor student . as you said, performed at the president's inaugural festivities. went home, was on her way in a month or so to paris. and was killed. apparently standing under a petition that was, you know, there for weather. and someone shot her. there with all kinds of theories of whether it was mistaken for gang warfare . she clearly had no involvement in any violence in her life, no gang warfare . in fact, had done a commercial against gang warfare . and had a mother on politics nation.

>> i want to play that for our viewers. take a listen.

>> her friend who was there with her, called me to let me know what was going on. and i left immediately. the first cab i could come across to get to my baby. never in a million years did i ever dream i'd be getting a call with my baby being shot.

>> that's heart crushing. and here's the thing, reverend al. this is shocking to a lot of folks, but chicago has been dealing with this for some time. this is the 42nd death so far this year in the windy city . what's happening in chicago ?

>> well, when you look at over 500 deaths last year, 42 already this year, and we're only in the third day of february, there is a real sense of a crisis in chicago . and people talk about strict gun laws in chicago . but 20% of the guns found in chicago come from one gun shop right outside of chicago . so unless there's national legislation, as the president has proposed and the nra keeps attacking, it doesn't matter if a city has laws, you don't build walls around cities. we need national legislation to deal with how we deal with firearms in this country, from background checks all the way to the automatic weapons , semiautomatic weapons, and these magazines.

>> at this point, though, do you think assault weapons ban even stands a chance anymore?

>> i think the question is do we stand a chance, when 15-year-old honor students can be killed. the question is not whether the legislation can pass numbers. the question is whether society can survive without the legislation, when we can't protect little girls two weeks away from the president's inauguration.

>> i want to talk to you about your old friend ed koch . what do you remember most about the mayor?

>> we fought for many years.

>> i know.

>> the first time i was arrested.

>> the first time.

>> on civil rights demonstrations. he accommodated that. he said he made me famous. but he was a guy who was a total ultimate new yorker. he had the swagger. he would say what he meant, meant what he said. we didn't agree a lot. later in life, we became allies of harvard university and he started a program giving second chance to nonviolent drug offend offenders to give them a way of coming back in society and becoming constructive. and i ended up working with him. i became the third part of the trio. i got to work him. when i was put in jail for leading protests in puerto rico about navy bombers, he actually went to the puerto rican day parade and led the parade.

>> how about it?

>> so we prove that you disagree without being disagreeable. but i never saw him as a hypocrite or a phony. he would tell you yes if he agreed, no, if he didn't and let the consequences fall where they may, so i respected him even though i disagreed with him more than i agreed with him. i never lost my respect for him.

>> reverend al, always good to see you.

>> good to see you.

>> who do you have tonight?

>> i'm rooting for beyonce.

>> you and a lot of