Cross-Examination of Oscar Pistorius at an End; A Look at the Blood Moon
CUOMO: Welcome back. The blistering days-long cross-examination of Oscar Pistorius has come to an end. The Blade Runner never wavering from his story that he shot his girlfriend by mistake. The prosecution, slamming that claim at every turn. Now today, Pistorius broke down saying he's not sure who's to blame. Now, what will that mean? CNN's Robyn Curnow joining us now from Pretoria, South Africa. How did that play in the courtroom, he doesn't know who's to blame?</s>ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At one point the prosecutor putting it to him, you know, who is to blame? Is Reeva to blame? Is the government to blame? At one point I thought he felt he was stopping short of saying, you know, is it the tooth fairy? Is it Father Christmas? He was being quite sarcastic, quite pointed at him. Either say, soon after that, soon after that, Oscar Pistorius stood down, after a very short re-examination. And I must say it's been seven days on the stand, and he's looked increasingly exhausted, hollow-eyed. And I suppose with good reason because there's been really mixed legal reaction to his performance on the stand.</s>OSCAR PISTORIUS, ON TRIAL FOR FATALLY SHOOTING GIRLFRIEND: I was screaming Reeva, Reeva.</s>CURNOW (voice-over): Oscar Pistorius continuing to proclaim his innocence on the final day of the prosecution's cross-examination.</s>PISTORIUS: I was overcome with terror and despair.</s>CURNOW: The prosecution asking crucial questions. Why would Pistorius open fire on the bathroom door if all he heard was the magazine rack move from inside?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why would you fire if the magazine rack moved?</s>PISTORIUS: Because I thought it was the door openings, my lady.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, how could you -- you said you thought it was the magazine rack.</s>PISTORIUS: I said, I think it was the magazine rack. In retrospect, it could have only been the magazine rack because the door didn't open, my lady.</s>CURNOW: The prosecutor doggedly pressing the athlete on why he stopped screaming after he broke down the door and found his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, bloody and barely breathing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now seeing her for the first time that your panic would not have been at its greatest when you saw her through the broken door.</s>PISTORIUS: When I saw Reeva there I was broken; I was overcome with a bunch of sadness.</s>CURNOW: Pistorius says shooting Reeva was a tragic mistake. The prosecution asking who then should be held responsible.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who should be blamed for you having shot her?</s>PISTORIUS: My lady, I believed that there was a threat that was on my life.</s>CURNOW: The defense bringing, the Olympian back on the stand.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you consciously pull the trigger or not?</s>PISTORIUS: My lady, I didn't think about pulling the trigger.</s>CURNOW: Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend in the early hours of February 14th over a year ago. The defense making the athlete read Steenkamp's Valentine's day card allowed, a card she never had a chance to give him.</s>PISTORIUS: I think today is a good day to tell you that. And then it says I love you.</s>CURNOW (on-camera): Now, what's interesting about that card and the Valentine's day present, which was a series of photos of the two couples together, was at that the police didn't consider it important enough as evidence, only submitted by the defense as evidence today, exhibit hhh (ph). And, of course, Reeva's last message, at least for Oscar Pistorius and his team, is very important, because it paints them as a loving couple right to the end.</s>BOLDUAN: This isn't over yet. All right, Robyn, thank you very much, live in Pretoria, for us, South Africa. So last night you may have been lucky enough if you stayed up late enough to catch a spectacular event in the sky. A lunar eclipse turned the moon crimson red. Meteorologist Indra Petersons has been looking closer at this rare blood moon. Tell us more.</s>INDRA PETERSONS, METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, what it was was a total lunar eclipse. What does that mean? That means the moon was completely in the shadow of the earth. So why red, right? Let's look at it another way. Let's pretend we spin you around and pretend you're on the moon looking back at the earth. So what are you seeing? You're seeing all of the earth's sunsets and sun rises at the exact same time you project it right back at the moon, and then the moon just reflects that red color back to earth. That's why it looks red. So let's see what people kind of saw out there, shall we? Beautiful. I mean, if you were in Michigan, you actually had clearer conditions, one of the better places to view. Look at this. What a gorgeous shot. We'll show you another one, get through a couple of these here. Looks like our next shot is from Dallas, Texas, kind of a little bit of a different phase, maybe not the peak here. And then the third one here looks like from Florida. Still, I mean, really anywhere in the entire U.S. they were able to see this. Keep in mind, it's one of four that we're gonna be able to see in the next year and a half. And yeah, we're kind of getting used to this. Last time was 2003, 2004. But 1600, 1900, 300-year span they saw none of these. What did I see? The same thing Cuomo saw, absolutely nothing today, cloud cover and buildings. Not so beautiful here in New York City but a lot of you got a little bit luckier than we did.</s>BOLDUAN: Yet another reason it is good to live in Midwest.</s>PETERSONS: I will give you that today. My husband will, too.</s>BOLDUAN: Exactly. Thanks, Indra.</s>CUOMO: All right, coming up on NEW DAY, can the Bluefin do it? On day one the robot sub scares itself going too deep looking for flight 370. So now as crews get ready to relaunch it, is the technology up to the job?</s>BOLDUAN: And on Inside Politics we'll look at the politics of Edward Snowden. Some in Washington have called him a traitor, but now the newspapers have published his leaks have won Pulitzer Prizes.