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Hurricane Beryl Hits Category 5, Heads to Jamaica; President Biden Slams Supreme Court Decision on Immunity; Far-Right Party Leads After First Round of Voting. Biden Leans on Inner Circle Amid Calls to Drop Out; Calls for Justice, Accountability after Police Kill Protestors. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired July 02, 2024 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:31]

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.

Hurricane Beryl is getting stronger now a category five storm, leaving a trail of destruction as it moves towards Jamaica.

U.S. president Joe Biden speaks out against the Supreme Court's ruling on Donald Trump's absolute immunity, warning that it sets a dangerous precedent for those in power.

And God's Influencer, a video-gaming Italian teenager, will become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint.

Hurricane Beryl has just reached category five strength. It's setting a new record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall so early in the season. It's roaring through the Caribbean towards Jamaica with winds moving at 260 kilometers an hour. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says it's expected to bring life-threatening conditions and a storm surge to Jamaica starting Wednesday.

Already the storm has made devastating landfall across Windward Islands Monday, knocking out power and destroying homes. Parts of St. Vincent and the Grenadines have no water or power, and at least one person was reportedly killed there. The prime minister of Grenada says the country's second largest island was flattened in half an hour.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has more.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Really very few storms in the world have ever made me speechless, but this in the beginning of July, where you see the hurricane hunter flying through the stadium. There is the middle of the eye. You can see the sky, but then all of a sudden now he's flying into the eyewall, the most violent part of the storm. That was earlier today.

Hurricane warnings now posted for Jamaica. Tropical storm warnings posted for parts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Whether it's a near miss or not, there is going to be winds out there that do get to hurricane force. Do get to tropical storm-force. Here's how rare this storm is. The average date of the first major

hurricane on record for any new year is September 1st. It's what, July 2nd? We are a full two months ahead because the water is really two months ahead of time. We are going to see wind through the Caribbean. The good news is right here through this stripe, there's nothing except water. But when it gets closer to Jamaica, and really could even get closer to the Yucatan Peninsula.

In this water, upper 80s, middle 80s, with waves now being reported by NOAA at 42 feet. There will still be consequences whether you're near that eye or not, especially with the waves, possible surge. There's a lot going on here, and this storm really only started about 48 hours ago or so. And here's where we are right now.

KINKADE: Our thanks to Chad Myers there.

Well, Delian Colon-Burgos is a graduate research assistant of the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. She joins us now from Fort Collins, Colorado.

Thanks so much for your time.

DELIAN COLON-BURGOS, GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT, DEPARTMENT OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes, of course. Thank you for the opportunity.

KINKADE: So Beryl has now strengthened to a category five Atlantic hurricane. This is the earliest category five in the Atlantic on record. Put this record-breaking storm into context for us.

COLON-BURGOS: Yes. So Hurricane Beryl strengthened very rapidly. It was yesterday, just a cat-1, so to be exact, rapid intensification is when a storm strengthens by more than 35 miles per hour in less than 24 hours. So this storm particularly strengthened 65 miles per hour in 24 hours. So the 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time advisory on Saturday is that the sustained winds were around 65 miles per hour and then by yesterday, Sunday at 11:00 a.m. they were double that, 130 miles per hour. So a cat-4. Impressive, definitely.

KINKADE: Wow. And of course it made landfall as a cat-4 in parts of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which now reportedly have no electricity or water. Just talk to us about the devastation so far.

COLON-BURGOS: Yes, the devastation with systems like this is just impressive.

[00:05:01]

It's catastrophic. That's the only way to describe it because these are island nations. They're firsthand vulnerable that they are surrounded by water so the risk from storm surge, rainfall, and flooding are incredible. So it's just really sad to see this happening and at the same time, just impressed by nature on how they can do this because a lot of communities are being affected by this right now. And it's still tracking towards Jamaica and possibly we don't know what it will impact next. So definitely we have to keep an eye on this system. KINKADE: Yes, I want to ask you about Jamaica because it is forecast

to hit Jamaica on Wednesday. And of course, as you mentioned, it's not just the wind, it's the storm surge. What are they expecting there?

COLON-BURGOS: Yes. So right now Jamaica is under a hurricane warning. So it's expected to make landfall in Jamaica as a major hurricane so we're talking at least a category three, and that is at least sustained winds of 111 miles per hour. So still we need to track the system and see how much it continues to strengthen or weaken, so definitely keep an eye on the communications from the National Hurricane Center.

But in terms of the impacts, same thing. Storm surge is the deadliest threat from hurricanes. So definitely if you live in a coastal area, you have to evacuate. That's the only way. You have to evacuate and follow your governmental agencies' recommendations.

KINKADE: Yes, exactly. Listen to authorities.

So, Delian, just take us back to the basics. How does a hurricane form and why are we seeing one this strong right now?

COLON-BURGOS: Right. So all the forecasts for the 2024 seasonal, this '24 hurricane season have tracked to be above average, and this has been since April. We have been issuing this forecast particularly for our forecast, we issued the CSU forecast issued. An extremely active hurricane season, exactly of 23 named storms, 11 becoming hurricanes, and five reaching that major intensity category.

But -- and going back to the basics, these storms feed off the ocean water and right now our ocean waters are so warm. So right now, to be exact, and where Hurricane Beryl is tracking in the Caribbean Sea, the waters are one to 1.5 degrees Celsius above average. So the waters right now in the Caribbean Sea are what we usually see on September. So definitely we're ahead of schedule and these storms speed up from the energy of the ocean, and use it as fuel to intensify.

So definitely warmer oceans means there's more energy for these storms to intensify and makes it easier for them to gain a higher intensity.

KINKADE: You can only imagine that there'd be a lot of people heading to the Caribbean for the July 4 holiday, which is this Thursday. What would your advice be to people that are making their way there?

COLON-BURGOS: Yes. So this is the thing when in hurricane season, we have a lot of people constantly traveling and there's a lot of people that come from not -- don't know how to deal with hurricanes. So they're not from coastal areas. And you have to be really alert if you have travel plans to this area. Reassess because your life come first and this is a life-threatening situation, so if you have to change your vacations, I would do that. And always stay with the latest information from the National Hurricane Center.

KINKADE: Delian Colon-Burgos, thank you so much for your time tonight. Appreciate it.

COLON-BURGOS: Of course. Thank you so much.

KINKADE: Well, the U.S. president is blasting the Supreme Court's bombshell decision on presidential immunity that could allow Donald Trump to escape accountability in some of his ongoing criminal cases. Joe Biden says presidents are not kings and no one is above the law, and that Donald Trump, quote, "will now be free to ignore it."

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today's decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. This is a fundamentally new principle and it's a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law even including the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.

This decision today has continued the court's attack in recent years on a wide range of long established legal principles in our nation.

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KINKADE: Well, the 6-3 decision rules that Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for all his official acts, including some of the actions he took before leaving office. All of the justices on the top row backed his immunity argument. Three of them, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett were appointed by Trump himself.

Well, Trump is hailing the ruling as a big win for the Constitution and democracy. CNN's Paula Reid picks up the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Presidents have to be given total immunity. They have to be allowed to do their job.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The Supreme Court, partially siding with former president Donald Trump in his ongoing January 6th case, ruling that former presidents are entitled to some immunity from prosecution for official actions but not for private conduct.

In the 6-3 opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority, "At least with respect to the president's exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. The president enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts and not everything the president does is official. The president is not above the law."

The high court, though, leaving it up to lower courts to determine which actions are official and therefore immune. Roberts writing, "Other allegations such as those involving Trump's interactions with the vice president, state officials and certain private parties and his comments to the general public present more difficult questions," meaning District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump's January 6th case, will need to decide whether Trump's pressure campaign to get Vice President Pence --

TRUMP: If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.

REID: Georgia state officials --

TRUMP: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.

REID: And others to overturn the 2020 election results were official acts.

Trump's celebrating the decision on social media, posting, "Big win for our Constitution and democracy."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting from the majority opinion, writing, "The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law." Something she and other liberal justices warned about during oral arguments in April.

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, U.S. SUPREME COURT: I'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.

REID: The decision likely to hamstring special Counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case.

JACK SMITH, DOJ SPECIAL COUNSEL: Charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States.

REID: Roberts making clear in his majority opinion that Trump's discussions with Justice Department officials and his official conversations with the then vice president are immune. And in another blow for Smith, Roberts says Trump's official acts cannot be considered even as evidence at trial. A trial in this case, though, now highly unlikely before the November election.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID (on-camera): Sources tell CNN that Trump's legal team intends to use this opinion to attack other cases Trump is facing, including the Mar-a-Lago classified documents prosecution and his recent conviction in New York. They will likely use this opinion to argue that portions of Hope Hicks' testimony, as well as tweets that were introduced as evidence should be tossed out.

Now it's unclear if that will be enough to upend that conviction, but it will clearly keep Trump's lawyers busy over the next few months.

Paula Reid, CNN, the Supreme Court.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Civil rights attorney and legal affairs commentator Areva Martin joins us now live from Los Angeles.

Good to have you with us.

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Hi, Lynda.

KINKADE: So in this 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have absolute immunity from federal prosecution for official acts, but not for unofficial acts. Who determines what's official? Take us through the ramifications for Trump's federal cases.

MARTIN: Yes. Lynda, this is a sweeping decision by the Supreme Court, not unexpected by most legal experts. It gives a president and in this particular case, Donald Trump, broad immunity from things that were never ever established under the law. There was never ever in our judicial system and our legal jurisprudence the kind of immunity granted to a president such as what has been ruled by this Supreme Court today.

Essentially, this court stated that conversations that Donald Trump had with any executive branch employees or executive branch members such as his vice president then Mike Pence, are absolutely immune.

[00:15:10]

That would mean even conversations he had with then attorney general Jeff Clark. We know that conversations with Jeff Clark are part of the indictment that indictment that was brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Under this ruling by the Supreme Court pretty much any conversations had with those executive branch members enjoy presidential immunity, and that is again a sweeping development, a paradigm shift, a change in the relationship that the president has with the American people.

It is, as Trump has said, a victory for him and beyond the substantive ruling, Lynda, this case will delay seemingly beyond the November election any prospect of a trial of this matter at the district court level because the court essentially remanded the case back to the district court to hold what will essentially be many trials on all of the factual allegations in the indictment.

KINKADE: And Areva, it was interesting listening to Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent where she listed examples where the president would be immune from prosecution. She said ordering the Navy SEAL Team 6 to kill a political rival would mean the president is immune. Ordering a coup to hold onto power again immune. She predicts disastrous consequences.

MARTIN: Yes. And those that may think she's exaggerating or using hyperbole I don't think so. I think what we've seen from this court is a willingness, this 6-3 majority conservative court, a court that was carefully, carefully curated by Donald Trump when he was in office is willing to stretch the boundaries of the law in order to in many ways advance a Republican agenda, a conservative agenda.

Donald Trump brags about the fact that he hand-selected these justices so that they could do exactly what they are doing, which is deliver to him win after win after win. You have to look at this case in the context of what happened on Friday when this court essentially said a federal obstruction statute could not be used to prosecute those individuals who we witnessed with our very eyes storm and break into the Capitol. Those insurrectionists also another victory for Donald Trump and those who have been held accountable for their conduct on January 6th.

KINKADE: Yes, exactly. And of course, I have to ask you like historically what this sort of a decision would have meant for someone like former president Richard Nixon, who famously said when the president does it, that means that it's not illegal. He said that to British journalist David Frost. What would a ruling like this have meant for Nixon? Would it have given him a pass?

MARTIN: Absolutely. And it seems like Richard Nixon was foretelling the future. We didn't imagine, I think those of us that work, you know, as lawyers, as judges work in the legal profession could not have ever imagined that a president, a sitting president, could be immune from criminal activity that as Donald Trump once said, that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not face any consequences of this Supreme Court according to that dissent from Judge Sonia Sotomayor, pretty much agrees with that prediction.

Donald Trump, according to this opinion, pretty much is above the law. Again, to think that the comments that he made, the conversations, the statements that he made, even if those statements involved a rangy or conspiring to commit criminal acts, this court says he enjoys immunity from prosecution.

KINKADE: Frightening. Areva Martin, in Los Angeles, thanks so much for your time.

MARTIN: Thank you, Lynda.

KINKADE: 30 passengers are recovering from injuries after their flight from Spain to Uruguay hit strong turbulence. Video from the cabin shows the damage in the Air Europa plane's interior. The flight made an emergency landing in Brazil after what passengers described as a terrifying experience.

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MAXIMILLIANO, PASSENGER (through translator): From one moment to the next the plane destabilized and went into a dive. The people who didn't have seatbelts went up in the air and hit the ceiling and they got hurt. Those who had seatbelts on not so much. Then we landed here as an emergency. They helped us on the runway. We were on the plane for three or four hours without being able to move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: According to FlightAware, the aircraft is a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The news comes amid a string of bad publicity for Boeing, which has recently faced a series of whistleblowers alleging safety issues at the company. There's no evidence Monday's incident had anything to do with a safety malfunction.

[00:20:04] Well, a surge of support at the polls for France's far-right in the first round of parliamentary elections. What might the second round of voting bring? We'll have a closer look just ahead.

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KINKADE: Welcome back. A pivotal week ahead for France, where political deal-making is expected ahead of the second round of parliamentary elections. The far-right took the lead in the first round, prompting rivals to seek united front in the hopes of preventing them from reaching a majority. And reaction to the results splashed across the front page of French newspapers with headlines that read the end of an era and the National Rally at the door of power.

Results from the first round of voting assured the majority of candidates elected so far representing National Rally and its allies. Projections show the far-right party could win as many as 280 seats in the lower house after the second round. Candidates have until Tuesday to confirm whether they'll compete on Sunday.

And there's been reaction across Europe including in Italy where Prime Minister Meloni cheered the success of the National Rally and said attempts to demonize far-right political parties are failing. But in Germany, there was a far different reaction.

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ANNALENA BAERBOCK, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): I would like to make it clear here that it cannot leave anyone unmoved if in our own country, for example, in the European elections or in the country of our closest partner and best friend, a party that sees Europe as the problem and not the solution is far ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: CNN's Melissa Bell has more details from Paris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jubilation mixed with disbelief. France's far-right supporters celebrating their historic win. the long controversial party's lead in the first round of parliamentary elections but it was hardly surprising given the National Rally's victory in European elections last month.

HELENE CONWAY-MOURET, FRENCH SENATOR, SOCIALIST PARTY: When I saw that the figures yesterday of people voting, I kind of felt, well, you know. They do not want --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a high turnout.

CONWAY-MOURET: Yes, they do not want the extreme right. But in fact, its vote that's been constantly dated from the three weeks ago the European elections where we thought maybe it was just a message. No, it's not the message. It's an actual movement.

BELL: Marine Le Pen's party held just 88 seats in parliament before Macron called the snap elections. Now it leads the votes securing outright 38 seats in the first round with projections showing that it leads the race in more than half of 501 seats that are up for grabs in the second round.

The far-right now poised for a parliamentary majority but the remaining question of whether or not it will be absolute and with that whether the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella will become the next prime minister.

[00:25:11]

JORDAN BARDELLA, NATIONAL RALLY PRESIDENT (through translator): I'm the only one in this election who can talk about the substance and the day-to-day concerns of the French people. Purchasing power, security, and immigration.

BELL: But it is on France's relationship with the rest of the world are some biggest questions arise, in particular what a far-right French government would mean for Europe and for Ukraine.

DONALD TUSK, POLISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This is already starting to smell of great danger. Not only the results of the first round of the French elections, but also the information about Russian influence and Russian services in many parts of the radical right Euro.

BELL: Long seen as a fringe party, considered too toxic by some to be electable, its moved to center stage has led to calls for the country to unite against it ahead of this Sunday's second round of voting which will see an unprecedented number of races between three candidates representing the far-right, the left-wing new Popular Front alliance, which came second, and Emmanuel Macron's centrist ensemble coalition.

Within that coalition, the Renaissance Party, eight years after it was created, looks set to be the main victim of an election its founder never even had to call.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Joe Biden's family and closest aides are sticking by the president despite calls for him to drop out of the 2024 race. But now there's talks of a potential shakeup among his staff. That story next.

Plus Kenyans are burying their dead after dozens are killed in government protests. More in their push to hold police and officials accountable, when we return.

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KINKADE: Welcome back to our viewers watching all around the world. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Thanks for joining us for CNN NEWSROOM.

Well, Donald Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon is now in federal prison in Connecticut. Bannon reported to prison Monday to serve a four-month sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. It was issued by the now-defunct House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Speaking to supporters outside the facility, Bannon said he is, quote, "a political prisoner."

The conservative podcaster is a staunch Trump ally and a vocal supporter of his presidential reelection bid. He's the second former Trump aide to be imprisoned for contempt of court.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is defending President Joe Biden after his lackluster debate performance last week. He says the world is focused on Biden's record during his entire presidency, not just one night, as calls grow louder for the president to step aside.

[00:30:17]

CNN's Brian Todd takes a look at Biden's inner circle and the possibility of a staff shakeup.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The people hunkering down with Joe Biden right now, who have, according to CNN sources, encouraged the president to stay in the race despite a poor debate performance, are a tightly-knit, fiercely loyal, and surprisingly small group of confidants.

LARRY SABATO, PROFESSOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: For such an outgoing politician, Biden really does have a very small group of people he relies on for the most important things.

TODD (voice-over): Closest to the president among his inner circle, his wife of 47 years, Jill Biden.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: She has a lot of sway. The president trusts her implicitly, and they talk about a lot of issues. She gives the president political advice, but also gives him just broader advice.

TODD (voice-over): The only other person who comes close to Jill Biden when it comes to having his trust, analysts say, his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, three years younger than the president, who was involved in Biden's earliest presidential campaigns and helped him raise his two young sons after his first wife and their daughter were killed in a car crash.

NICHOLS: Crucially, she can tell the president, like I imagine most sisters can, tell the president when he's doing something that might not be in his best interest or, frankly, boneheaded.

TODD (voice-over): Outside the immediate family, longtime Biden friend and steady adviser Ted Kaufman is believed to hold a great deal of influence. SABATO: Ted Kaufman, remember, was his chief of staff for many, many

years and got Biden's Senate seat when he resigned to become vice president. Ted Kaufman is in his mid-80s. So I'm not sure he thinks of the president as his meal ticket.

TODD (voice-over): There's also Anita Dunn, senior advisor to the president, a longtime Democratic strategist, who's said to have a keen sense of the political winds.

NICHOLS: Anita, inside that room, has a great deal sway, especially on where the president should be spending his time, how should he be spending his time, and what states he's going to visit.

TODD (voice-over): Ron Klain, who served as Biden's chief of staff when he was vice president and in the same capacity during the first two years of Biden's presidency, and Mike Donilon, a top political strategist, are also part of the Biden brain trust.

Could the president be considering a staff shakeup after his debate performance?

SABATO: They were the people surrounding him at Camp David, preparing him for the debate. So I guess it's possible he has a little less confidence in them now than he did a week or so ago.

TODD (voice-over): Still, analysts say the president's loyalty to his inner circle might well remain steadfast.

NICHOLS: You know, one thing that happens in Biden land is that you get yelled at a lot, but you don't necessarily get fired.

TODD: Are there any signs of fractures among members of President Biden's inner circle? Analyst Hans Nichols says, at the moment, there are no outward signs that there are.

But he says that will be one of the crucial developments that political operatives and journalists will be looking for as we head toward the Democratic National Convention in August.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: As the war in Gazan nears ten months, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says his forces are nearing the end stage of eliminating Hamas in the territory. He says he visited his Gaza division Sunday and saw very considerable achievements and fighting in Rafah.

Mr. Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Hamas remnants. Before launching the military operation in Rafah in May, Israeli leaders had said that its Southern Gaza city was the last stronghold of Hamas.

Kenyans are calling for Belize to be held accountable for their actions during deadly protests over the past few weeks.

Kenya's National Commission on Human Rights reports 39 people were killed, hundreds more injured by excessive and disproportionate force.

Youth-led protests erupted over a controversial finance bill that Kenya's president ultimately threw out.

CNN's Larry Madowo was in Nairobi on the deadliest day of protests last week. His report contains graphic images which may be hard to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

LARRY MADOWO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A prayer for the dead. The family of Ebrahim Kamau (ph) say their final goodbyes, his body being taken for burial. He was only 19.

His mother tells us Ebrahim (ph) had just graduated from high school and was hoping to go to college. Ebrahim (ph) was shot twice in the neck at a protest in Nairobi.

EDITH WANJIKU KAMAU, SON KILLED IN PROTESTS (through translator): I didn't go that day, because I didn't have childcare. But we always went together and came back, because the protests were peaceful.

The first thing I want is justice for Ebrahim (ph) and all the kids who died, because they all had dreams.

(GUNSHOTS)

MADOWO (voice-over): Protests broke out across Kenya last month against a proposed finance bill, largely driven by young people, organizing on social media.

[00:35:04[

But the deadliest day was June 25th, when protesters stormed Parliament in Nairobi. Human rights groups accused police of shooting dozens of unarmed protesters, including some who were fleeing.

No one has accepted or denied responsibility for the killings.

Our crew filmed shocking scenes like here, left of your screen. A man running away is shot in the back with a tear gas canister at close range.

These protesters standing over a man who's apparently dead. Police fire a non-lethal round directly at them.

Nairobi's police chief, seen here, commanded the operation. His offices clearly contravening their own rules for the use of force.

CNN analyzed the deadliest two hours when most of the protesters are believed to have been killed. Keep an eye on the man in white overalls, waving his arms earlier in the day.

Twenty-five-year-old Ericson Chalamatissier (ph) was supposed to be at the butcher shop where he worked, his mother said, but ended up here. CNN's camera captured him dancing until shots rang out.

Police advanced towards the protesters. More shots and people run away. Amid the chaos, we spot Ericson (ph) again. He is lifeless on the sidewalk. Around him, other protesters are also on the ground.

As the smoke lifts, one man has been shot in the head. People rush to help, but police keep firing at them. A bag is thrown in the air as the smoke grenade goes off. But that protester escaped.

We were on the scene as this unfolded.

MADOWO: There are three bodies lying on the ground after we heard live ammunition coming from Parliament. A police truck is on fire, and the protesters appear to be pushing the police, overwhelming them, getting closer to Parliament.

MADOWO (voice-over): Unknown to us at the time, Ericson's (ph) body was being carried away behind me, his white overalls soaked in blood.

We obtained his autopsy report. Ericson (ph) was shot in the back and bled to death.

Moments later, another injured protester is carried away. But he is lucky he survived. That protester is 26-year-old Ian Kaya (ph), who was also hit in the back.

IAN KAYA (ph), PROTESTOR: I'm in pain because from the government.

MADOWO (voice-over): He was demonstrating because he's been jobless since he graduated five years ago.

KAYA (ph): Our main mission is to change Kenya to be a better Kenya.

MADOWO: Do you regret going out to protest?

KAYA (ph): I'm not rejecting (ph) anything, because it's my right.

MADOWO (voice-over): Ian (ph) is a keen bodybuilder that has lost the use of his legs.

CNN obtained three autopsy reports of protesters who were demonstrating around Parliament on the same day. Two died from gunshot wounds. One was shot in the head, the other in the back.

One opposition lawmaker, concerned about police brutality in recent days, says he will fight to hold those responsible.

YUSUF HASSAN ABDI, KENYAN OPPOSITION MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: We cannot accept this colonial-minded, archaic trigger-happy police. Something must change, and we would make sure that the victims of this particular crisis get justice.

MADOWO (voice-over): Families buried their dead, young men and women vocalizing their anger at a government they feel is not listening to them, not helping them create a better future.

An oversight body is investigating police conduct during the protests, but many here don't believe they'll ever see justice.

Larry Madowo, CNN, Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Well, CNN asked the Kenya police and the Ministry of Interior about the conduct of security forces during those protests but has not yet received a response.

President William Ruto said, in a TV interview on Sunday, that the police tried their best and maintain that criminals infiltrated legitimate protests.

I'm going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're watching CNN.

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[00:41:24]

KINKADE: Welcome back. A videogaming Italian teenager will become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint. Carlo Acutis was so renowned for using his computer skills to spread awareness of the Catholic faith he earned the nickname God's Influencer.

He died from leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15.

The pope approved his canonization on Monday. Being recognized as a saint usually takes decades, but this case has moved swiftly, with the teenager developing a devoted following around the world.

Some say Acutis's story might help the church to better connect with younger people.

Well, it is the end of the road for Team USA in the Copa America after losing to Uruguay on Monday. Members say they didn't play well enough to win, and their fighting spirit was visibly crushed after Uruguay scored in the second half.

The loss raises questions about Coach Greg Berhalter's position. He remains deeply unpopular with some American fans, who could push for him to be replaced ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

That does it for this edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Lynda Kinkade. I'll be back at the top of the hour with much more news. Do stay with us. WORLD SPORT is next.

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