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Trial Resumes for George Floyd's Killer; Global Leaders Unite in Call for Pandemic Treaty; Suez Canal Traffic Resumes. Aired 10-10:20a ET

Aired March 30, 2021 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:00]

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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello. I'm Lynda Kinkade in for Becky Anderson. Welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD.

This hour, we're watching two big live events. Testimony for day two in Derek Chauvin's trial is beginning in just under 30 minutes. We'll be

taking you to that courtroom live.

We're also expecting a press conference from the World Health Organization after releasing their long-awaited report into the origins of the

coronavirus. We're also monitoring that and we'll bring you the very latest as it happens.

First, though, we begin with the trial of the former U.S. police officer accused of killing a Black man. The death of George Floyd ignited a summer

of protests across the United States. Testimony picks back up this hour in the trial of the Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin. He's charged with

murder and manslaughter in the death of Floyd last May.

His death sparked the largest civil rights demonstrations in the United States in 60 years and similar protests across the world.

On Monday, prosecutors said Chauvin used excessive force when he knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly 9.5 minutes, longer than originally believed. They

also played a graphic video of that incident.

The defense says Floyd may have died of a drug overdose and underlying medical problems. Omar Jimenez has more on what was a gut-wrenching opening

day of witness statements and testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: The most important numbers you will hear in this trial are 9:29, what happened in those 9 minutes and 29

seconds.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nine minutes and 29 seconds. That's the corrected length of time prosecutors say Derek Chauvin knelt on

George Floyd's neck.

GEORGE FLOYD, POLICE MURDER VICTIM: I can't breathe.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): During day one of opening statements, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell played a bystander's video in full for the jury.

BLACKWELL: Mr. Derek Chauvin betrayed this badge when he used excessive and unreasonable force upon the body of Mr. George Floyd.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Chauvin faces three counts, second and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The defense argues that Floyd died

of previous health conditions and his methamphetamine and fentanyl use. An autopsy said drug use was a significant condition but it listed his cause

of death as heart failure during restraint.

ERIC NELSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do over the course of his 19-year career. The use of force is

not attractive but it is a necessary component of policing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop. Check his pulse.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Chauvin's attorney also argues the crowd that formed at the scene distracted the officers.

NELSON: They are screaming at him, causing the officers to divert their attention from the care of Mr. Floyd to the threat that was growing in

front of them.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The jury heard testimony from three witnesses, including the 9-1-1 dispatcher, who called the police sergeant while

watching surveillance video of the scene. At one point, she said, even thinking the real-time video froze, given how long the officers were on top

of Floyd.

JENA SCURRY, 9-1-1 OPERATOR: My instincts were telling me that something's wrong.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The jury also heard from Donald Williams, a mixed martial arts instructor, who was at the scene. He's trained in the use of

chokeholds and said he yelled to Chauvin of the blood choke he had Floyd in.

DONALD WILLIAMS, MARTIAL ARTS INSTRUCTOR, WITNESS: Every time his shoulder is moving, he's pushing that pressure down on his neck.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The nation has been waiting 10 months for this trial. Demonstrators flooded the surrounding streets outside the courthouse

in Minneapolis.

Floyd's brother was in the courtroom Monday. He says this trial is a test for the justice system.

PHILONISE FLOYD, GEORGE'S BROTHER: America is on trial right now. Minneapolis, Minnesota, they will have to get this right. We're tired of

people being killed and slaughtered.

If you can't get justice for this as a Black man in America, what can you get justice for?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: That was CNN's Omar Jimenez reporting.

To look ahead to day two of the trial which is expected to begin in less than 30 minutes, I want to bring in Elie Honig from New York.

Good to see you.

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi, Lynda.

KINKADE: We heard this is a referendum on where the U.S. stands on equality.

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KINKADE: And we heard from Floyd's family's attorney, who said, "This will prove, if we level up to the belief that all men are created equal."

What were your key takeaways on day one?

HONIG: Yes, so there's no question the stakes are enormous and go very much beyond whatever happens to Derek Chauvin. The entire nation is

watching.

The prosecution's case here is fairly straightforward. That video, which we learned yesterday was 9.5 minutes almost, not just 8:46, as the police had

previously said, that's the centerpiece of the prosecution's case here. They'll let the evidence speak for itself.

We also got a preview of the defense. The defense will argue that Derek Chauvin's actions did not contribute to George Floyd's death, that he died

from a combination of medical conditions and a drug overdose.

And the defense is going to argue that the amount of force Derek Chauvin used was not excessive, was not unreasonable. That's the basic playing

field as we move ahead here.

KINKADE: Take us through more of some of those key arguments in the defense so far from what we've heard. George Floyd was accused of using a

counterfeit $20 bill when police were called, which we then saw in that video, 9 minutes, 29 seconds long. An officer's knee, Chauvin's knee on his

neck that entire time.

So far the defense has sought to raise other possible things that may have contributed to his death, right?

HONIG: Yes, so that's going to be a tricky argument by the defense. Their argument is that he died from a combination of medical factors and from a

drug overdose and there were traces of drugs in George Floyd's blood.

The problem with that is first of all, the other medical evidence in this case, the autopsies, done by the county medical examiner and a private

independent medical examiner, both say this was homicide and that Chauvin's actions contributed to George Floyd's death.

Under the law, that's enough to hold Chauvin legally responsible. Also just a basic common sense issue here.

I mean, how unlikely would it be, what a coincidence would it be that George Floyd just happened to die during those 9.5 minutes while he's

pinned under Derek Chauvin's knee but Derek Chauvin putting his knee on George Floyd's neck somehow had nothing to do with it?

I think that's going to be difficult for a common-sense lay person jury to accept.

KINKADE: Derek Chauvin is charged with second and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Take

us through the difference between second and third-degree murder.

HONIG: So first of all, the prosecution in this trial -- and any trial in the United States -- has to prove each element of each charged crime beyond

a reasonable doubt. The jury will vote on each of these charges separately.

The top charge here is second-degree murder. The prosecution has to show that Chauvin intentionally assaulted George Floyd, not that he necessarily

intended to kill him but intentionally assaulted him and that resulted in the death.

The middle charge is a third-degree murder, what we call depraved mind murder. Derek Chauvin did something he knew was dangerous, that he knew

would be dangerous to others and did it anyway.

And the third and lowest charge is manslaughter, which just means Derek Chauvin acted negligently without due care toward George Floyd. The jury

can convict on all of them, on some of them but not others or none of them.

KINKADE: We, of course, have heard that this promises to be the most watched trial since O.J. Simpson.

Just putting into context for us, why does this matter so much?

HONIG: It's different from O.J. Simpson, fundamentally because what we're talking about here is an exercise of power of force by an arm of the state,

by a police officer. This isn't just two private parties.

So it gets at issues of societal inequality and sort of systemic racism in the way our criminal justice system works, in the way policing works and in

our ability as a nation, as a system, to hold our police accountable for what they do.

So is this a case about race?

No question. But it's also about even more than that. It's about the role of race in the American structure.

KINKADE: Elie Honig, always good to get your analysis. Thanks so much.

The World Health Organization wants you to know that there's very little chance the coronavirus came from a lab. At this hour, the World Health

Organization is presenting the findings from its COVID investigation on the source of the virus.

We've got a look at the draft of the report and, while it had no conclusive results, it did narrow the source to four likely scenarios.

The most likely was that it came from an animal that somehow had the virus and infected a human. Well, remember that wet market in Wuhan, where the

virus was thought to have originated, researchers found it may not have been the only wet market where the coronavirus was spread.

So why does the report matter so much?

Well, to make sure we learn from our mistakes and that it doesn't happen again. This has coincided with a strong call for unity today.

[10:10:00]

KINKADE: Twenty-five global leaders coming together to demand an international pandemic treaty that would work to protect the world from

future health crises. Nick Paton Walsh got an early look at the report and joins us from London.

Nick, more than a year after the pandemic began, the origins of the coronavirus is still unclear. But this report suggests that the chance it

came from a lab is unlikely.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: We've just heard from the World Health Organization, essentially saying that all hypotheses are

still on the table as they release this report.

But I have to tell you, that isn't what the report really says. It has to deal with these four possible scenarios of how the virus got into humans,

whether it was in frozen food, as the Chinese government has been trying to push; whether it may have been a laboratory link, as some Trump-era

officials kept trying to suggest.

But most scientists have been looking at two more likely options. And it goes straight into human beings from the animal that was the reservoir of

it, probably a bat.

Or did it go through what people call an intermediary animal?

And so science has determined the most likely place where the virus originated were bats because they have lots of viruses like them in them.

And then it got into another animal, maybe a mink or a cat. This report points to those two species specifically as strong possibilities.

And then maybe, in contact in the wildlife trade, got into humans. It's that intermediary animal which scientists all along thought was the most

likely way it got into humans and this report makes that conclusion as well.

But it does a lot of other work, too. There's been a lot of suspicion over why the Chinese government spent so long delaying access to WHO panel about

the kind of data, how raw it was, that the Chinese government gave to people working for the WHO.

But in this report itself, all 123 pages, there's a lot of information. And some of it is enormously inconvenient for China. They talk about records, a

rise in influenza-like illness in December 2019 around different parts of China. That could be completely unrelated, outbreaks of influenza which may

have made it hard to spot the first cases of coronavirus.

Or it could have been the first bits of coronavirus. They need to study that more as well. They point to lots of different variations, over 12,

slight changes in the virus sequence that were spotted in December 2019 in Wuhan. That suggested it had been around for a while as well.

And there's another interesting bit, too. You showed there the Huanan seafood market. That's always been pointed to anecdotally as ground zero,

so to speak. But this report says that, while half of the cases they came across in December 2019 had links to wet markets like that in general,

where wildlife is traded, only a quarter were only linked to the Huanan wet market, suggesting there was an event occurring around the area that may

have been superspreaded (sic) or amplified by the wet markets.

The lab leak theory, people keep coming back to it again and again. At this point there is no actual concrete evidence about it, a lot of

circumstantial evidence. One of the points the report points out is that a part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that does tests on viruses like

this, had moved, on December the 2nd, closer to the seafood market.

And there's speculation of maybe that was somehow involved in the spread of the disease. The report says, no and that staff were tested negative. Of

course, they are reliant on China for that data.

But it's another one of these theories people keep coming back to because of its political convenience for opponents of China. But there is at this

point minimal evidence to back it up.

Where are we now though?

We have an extensive report that asks a lot of questions still, certainly of the Chinese government's willingness to give more information up because

it wants more samples to continue its work.

And we now have this burning question as to precisely whether people will be able to narrow down the species that was that intermediary animal. More

work certainly needed but a pretty substantial document to date, despite the burning caveats that have always hung over it, that essentially China

has decided its timing.

And most likely quite a lot of what the experts working on it got to look at -- Lynda.

KINKADE: Nick Paton Walsh in London, we'll speak to you again more about this report in the coming hours. Thanks so much.

There are more questions over the AstraZeneca vaccine. The German cities of Munich and Berlin say they are halting shots of the COVID vaccine for

people under 60 as a precaution. Berlin officials say there's new data on side effects. They offered no details but said they're holding

consultations about the AstraZeneca vaccine later today.

The Suez Canal expects to see more than 100 ships pass through the waterway today after traffic resumed, following the release of that grounded

container ship. International crews worked day and night to dislodge the Ever Given.

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KINKADE: It became wedged in the Suez Canal last Tuesday, cutting off traffic in one of the world's busiest waterways. About 12 percent of global

trade flows through the Suez Canal on massive ships like the Ever Given.

And while traffic has resumed, experts say the impact of disruption could last for weeks. Our John Defterios has more on the business impact of the

shutdown.

First to Ben Wedeman, who is on the scene with the latest on the dramatic rescue mission.

It certainly was fantastic that this mammoth vessel finally dislodged. But still, a massive traffic jam there. Hundreds and hundreds of ships waiting

to get through.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but the Egyptian authorities have really pulled out all the stops, Lynda, to try to make

sure that traffic gets going again and that congestion clears up, keeping in mind, for instance, that, under normal circumstances, the canal is open

for about 10 to 12 hours every day.

At the moment, it's open 24 hours. And, in fact, overnight, we understand, until about 9:00 am this morning, 113 ships passed through. And in the

afternoon, another 95 are expected, going into Wednesday. They're doing what they can to really resume normal operations.

The Ever Given itself is to the south of here. It's currently under inspection. There were fears that its structure, given how long it is,

might have been compromised. And also an investigation is underway by the Egyptian authorities. But they are also bringing in other parties to help

find out why that ship went aground in the early morning hours of last Tuesday -- Lynda.

KINKADE: Thanks to you being on the scene there for us, Ben.

I want to go to John Defterios on the business impact because, obviously, looking at the wider impact, how much of a shock is this to the global

economy?

And will there be a rethink when it comes to just in time manufacturing?

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Yes, that could be the case, Lynda, for sure. Let me pick up on Ben's point.

It was full throttle by the Egyptians here, really going as fast as they can to clear the waterways. But there's some debate about how long that

will take.

If you talk to Maersk, the largest shipper, saying 5-6 days; Lloyd's List suggesting the same. The Egyptians are in such a hurry. They want it done

by midday Friday. So they are giving that sense of urgency to get it done.

So if they get if done by Friday, you're looking at a 1.5 weeks, total value of trade of $10 billion a day passing through the canal, it's $140

billion. There's a multiplier, of course, with those parts for an automobile are value added at the end.

But still, even if it's $300 billion in an $87 trillion global economy right now, I don't expect a huge shock. There's concerns about the supply

chain, as you suggested.

We have a look at four sectors here. For example, the paper sector. Toilet paper, which was in short supply during COVID-19 because of hoarding, there

are worries this could happen again from those who grow the trees to those who manufacture the paper.

Coffee shortages, you can understand why perhaps, because of Latin America --

(CROSSTALK)

KINKADE: Stop you there, John Defterios. Just going to have to stop you there. We're going to breaking news on the testimony, which has resumed,

day two of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged with the killing of George Floyd. Let's listen in.

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