was happening at the time the shot was fired was from who? questioning the testimony of the defense witness dennis root and joining now are our guests, and if you want to join in, just tweet me @piersmorgan. lots of tweets coming in with lots of opinions. dennis root, you gave this testimony which you basically imply the only course of action that was left open to george zimmerman was to take out his gun and shoot trayvon martin. why did you believe that so strongly? you take into csideration everything you learn about an individual. to say there are additional options that are available to a person is taking into consideration whether they have fighting skills, any other things. screaming for help was an option which he utilized if you believe he was the one screaming on the recording. to be asked what other options there are and the gentleman says i have other options, everybody else does. i have 22 years of training
Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20130713 07:31:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
dennis ruth said there is no other option for the defendant, he had that. for the defendant he said there wasn t another option but consider this, this is so important when you consider his opinion. the only evidence he had, the only evidence he had about what was happening at the time the shot was fired was from who? question the defense witness dennis root and senior contributor in the new york times and john kelly and if you want to join in, just tweet me at piers morgan. lots of tweets coming in with lots of opinions. dennis root, you gave this testimony which you basically imply the only course of action that was left open to george zimmerman was to take out his gun and shoot trayvon martin. why did you believe that so strongly? you take into consideration everything you learn about an individual. to say there are additional
fascinating. the only reason we re discussing it is because one witness described it in his own words as being what he observed. he likened it to mixed martial arts. the prosecution this is one of their best facts they have in a case full of bad facts for the prosecution, so they re going to blow this up to mushroom cloud proportions, to the extent they can to develop the theory that zimmerman was a vigilante, repleat with kung fu fighting ability. even though hess trainer said he was a 0.5 out of 10, he was trained nonetheless. and in fact, earlier today, we heard from a witness dennis root, calling himself a use of force specialist. he talked about how he didn t think that george zimmerman was very impressive at all in terms of his fighting ability. i guess, david, my question for you, as a former prosecutor is, they clearly now have had the
constantly moving situation. and i think that is true as well. so something a little bit for both sides. is he demonstrating that the 90-degree angle is more believe with trayvon martin disengaging from some kind of altercation and the gun being brandished? that is the argument that perhaps trayvon martin was pulling away and george zimmerman may have been pulling on his shirt and may explain the gap between the shirt and the bullet weaned heard about yesterday. a big blunder on this expert on cross-examination when he said he thought the incident may have happened in early june and he went around that time and the sun was not completely set so he thought the light conditions were reasonably good. number witnesses have testified it was very dark and we know this incident happened in february in the winter where it s much darker at 7:30. we are go back in and listen to the prosecution asking questions of this defense witness dennis root. you re asking me if somebody