theme was adoption, an alternative to abortion. are the headlines. i am john siegenthaler seeing. see you at 11 eastern, 8 pacific. america tonight is next. you can always get the latest news on aljazeera.com. on ameri"america tonight," senior prank that sent kids to jail. >> an administrator grabs me from behind and said, i saw you threw a water balloon. >> an in-depth look. zero tolerance for bad behavior making schools safer or put more black students on the fast track to a dead-end? >> to me, the most severe consequence is having a criminal record. >> "america tonight" investigates the school to prison pipe . also tonight, "america

tonight's" continuing focus on campus sex crimes with a renewed call to action. we will explain why now there is more to it. when technology brings new hope to humans. a remarkable and life-changing robot rescue. >> it was a huge change because it gave him a purpose in life. using robots to try to free up paralyzed people. good evening. thank you for joining us. i am joie chen. we tell students school is the path to a brighter 50. but an in-depth look at education, we see evidence for

some students school and an increasing focus on campus discipline can become a pipeline to prison. it is a trend that started in the 1990s after col um bine when many schools nationwide adopted a zero tolerance approach to on-campus misbehavior but it has had a dispirate impact on black students. he three or times as likely as white classmates to be expelled or suspended. the white house has taken notice, recently issuing new guidelines to disrupt what the critics say is a practice of criminalizing minor misbehavior sarah hoy went to wake county north carolina, some who charge it as being the biggest pipeline in the country. >> in raleigh, north carolina. 2006 students, they are known for diversity, a magnate program that attracts kids from the city and enough of a crime problem

that a security officer is assigned to the campus. today is a routine school day, unlike that day last may. >> we are in the high school because there is something going on. kids all in the middle of the street. >> what's going on? >> i don't know what, officer. >> police officers. >> i got arrested and booked and handcuffed. >> they cuffed me and another student up, and we go down to the detdeposition center. >> when i got in the office, they said they would arrest me. >> we sat down with one anglo parent and two at the high school and how it turned into mayhem. >> i was there to pick up my twin daughters. i am in the car pool lane. i say please presence there. yes understand why at the time. i went inside and was going to check my daughters out. >> that's when they told me there was a -- this was a senior day prank, water balloons or what have you. >> that's right. a massive water balloon fight is

what had triggered the 9-1-1 call. the raleigh police department dispatched 24 officers over the next few hours to restore order. >> a police officer runs up behind me, a really big guy. he grabs me. i snatch away from him, and he turns me around, and grabs me by my neck and slams me on my back. >>ty actually saw gabrielle getting picked up, slammed to the ground and handcuffed by a raleigh police officer. very disturbing, very graphic. >> the first thing that went may my head was, i can't believe i am about to get arrested. i have to walk my sister home because we ride the same bus. >> jabriela officer wasn't ant but robert brown was. charged with a minutes demeanor. >> an administrator grabs me from behind, grabs my shoulder and he said i seen you throw the water balloon. and i was like, no, i didn't. so they take me to a conference

room and tell me i will be arrested. >> 8 students were arrest along with parent kevin hines. (bleep). >> hines said after witnessing what happened to jabriel, he entered the school to alert the sprainings sprainin alert the principal. >> outcomes the officer you see body slam this young gentleman. >> that is exactly correct. he radios in to two other officers and they come swarm on me and slam me against the wall, and he says, taze him. taze him. i said for what. >> for trespassing. >> i said i have daughters here. >> hines was charged with trespassing and then there was steven perry ♪ where do i go now? >> when he is not composing his own scores, steven is a senior at nightdale high. he lives with his mother, lynn, just around the corner from enlow which had been his school

until may 16th. >> so you had a knife? >> yes, i did. it was, i would say, about a three-inch blade. >> a switch blade? >> no. it wasn't a switch blade. it was just like a carving knife. >> that's all it was. that was all i was using it for. >> why was it in your pocket at school? >> the priests day, like i had it with me. i forgot it was in my pocket. i threw on pants that morning. >> that morning, steven says, he was trying to steer clear from the water balloon ruckus and had gone outside when the school's police officer stopped him. >> he pushes me, just in order to get me to stop. so when he pushes me, i take my headphones off and i asked him, hi, how are you? and then he proceeds and says, where are you coming from? i told him that i was standing in the grass right there in front of the cars. i did not go off campus. i was just waiting for the crowd to clear out. and at that point in time is when he started to take out his handcuffs and tried to arrest me. he walked me to his office after he looked through all of my stuff in my bag, he asked me,

did i have anything on me that he should know about? and then i did tell him that i had a pocket knife in my pocket. >> the school called the police. >> so what was going through your mind when city police show up? my question was, was it that serious? am i really some bad person? was i really just a criminal? did i have to go to jail, get booked, get put in a cell and stay there? the police charged him with possessing a weapon on school property, a misdemeanor and gave him a long-term suspension. initially five months? >> he was kicked out. he was actually supposed to have been kicked out until the end of january. >> so from may to january? >> right. >> what are you supposed to do in the meantime, mom? >> right. and that was the question that i asked. >> lynn had to hire two lawyers, one to persuade wade county schools to riyadh mitt her son to a different school and another to work on getting the criminal charge dismissed. >>, she says, cost her $9,000.

>> you have to make a decision: am i going to let my son have this on his record and possibly ruin the rest of the his life, or am i going to pay the mortgage? >> she says the image of her son as a criminal is at odds of the choir boy he actually is. >> he has been playing piano since he was five years old and probably couldn't have gotten a -- could have gotten a scholarship to any music school he wanted to go to. they have killed that because of the arrest record. >> in north carolina, being arrested as a teenager has enormous consequences. it's one of only two states in the country that considers 16 an 17-year-olds to be adults which means dismissor charges are on your permanent record. >> they say that you can get it expunged. however, i just feel like it's an injustice to these kids when something that should have been handled administratively is being handled by raleigh police department. >> no one from enlow high school, the superintendent's

office, the school board, or the police department would talk to "america tonight" on camera about that day. the wade county school district and the school board released identical statements. the wade county public school system is responsible for providing a safe and optimal learning environment for all students. to that end, we can continuely review all policies and practices that affect learning and discipline. >> wade county has one of the largest school to prison pipelines in the country. >> jason landburg is the supervising attorney at advocates for children services in north carolina. >> they were short-term suspending 20,000 kids a year. >> 20,000 kids were out of school for up to? >> ten days and a thousand kids were being suspended for the rest of the school year, told get out. you are on the streets. come back next year. >> those suspension numbers are coming down, lamburg says but according to his analysis, black students get suspended five times as often be as white students. at enlow, black students are 39%

of the population but receive 92% of the long-term sus specs. >> when you look at some of these racial disparities as you are pointing out here, it would look as though the black kids are misbehaving. >> there is no evidence to support that black kids are acting up more or more severely. we with found data showing even for the same offenses, they are being suspended more often be and more harshly. >> he found 4% of kids -- 44% with cell phones were suspended. 17% of white kits? >> i get suspended. you get to go home with your cell phone? >> that's right. students doing the same things are treated differently. >> the water balloon incident, the young men said they weren't involved. >> cops had no idea what they were going in to it? >> your prank is supposed to be pun fun, never hurting anybody. any see really anyone getting

hurt by a water balloon, you know. no serious injury by a water balloon. you know, just a little water. >> just a little water. for these families, a life-altering impact. >> i want people to know that we aren't bad kids. we are not criminals, you know. we are not thiefs, murderers, anything like that. we are just in school and got put in the wrong sys. >> "america tonight" sara hoy will return with solutions. we want to continue our focus on schools today. we turn to dan lossen at ucla's civil rights proper. we appreciate your being with us and want to talk specifically about a complaint you have filed. this is a legal complaint. if you could explain to me: does it particularly pertain to this is dents or more proudly. >> more broad lee. it's joined. we are joining legal aid of north carolina and many other civil rights groups in filing this complaint, and it really

addresses the relationship of the wade county schools with school policing. it specifically focused on issues involving black kids and kids with disabilities where we are seeing large, large disparities in terms of who is affected, who is being affected by these unsound practices. >> so it might be exceptional in this particular district, but there is a broader problem nationwide? >> absolutely. we believe this is emblem attic of a problem we are seeing in many, many schools and districts across the country. but it's also true that there are many schools and districts that don't have these kinds of excessive policing issues and don't have excessive use of out-of-school suspension. so the solutions are right there around the corner, sometimes in the next district. for example, though, we are seeing schools referring kids to law enforcement. for kids with disabilities who make up about 12% of the national enrollment, we see 23%

of the referrals to law enforcement. for black students who make up about 18% of total enrollment, they make up about 42% of all of the kids who are being referred to law enforcement by schools. so there is a huge problem, and it's fwhooiingsd. >> striking numbers there. we want to bring mo can die into the discussion executive director of the national school of school resource officers. mr. kennedy, it may not apply to all corrects. it doesn't apply to all officers but is there recognition that there are maybe abuses that crackdown has gone too far? >> i appreciate dan making the point that it doesn't apply to all districts and agencies. and i will tell you for 24 years now, nazaroe has been in the business of planing police officers how to function properly in schools. you know, are there over policing issues in certainly

schools? i would suppose so because certainly not all police officers working in schools are trained by nazaro. as a matter of fact, north carolina unfortunately is one of the states where we virtually do no training because we have to be invited in to a state by local agencies to conduct the training. so, i think that's an important point to make. officers have to be properly trained how to work in the school environment. >> and it is not. i mean underscore the point here. it is not an easy thing to deal with young people, to deal with situations that might veer out of control and particularly in an eanvironment where we have seen summations school campusit. >> why the officer has to be properly selected and properly trained and, also, that there has to be some understanding between the school district and a law enforcement agency. this is truly designed to be

community-based policing at its finest. the idea is to connect with youth and to really bridge the gap between law enforcement and youth. >> mr. losen, do you agree? it really is you share this interest in seeing people trained properly. is there a difference between training, for example, law enforcement in the broader society and some sort of school officer training would be different? in other words, you can't take -- >> absolutely >>-- a police officer off the street and inject him into the school. >> absolutely. in fact, that is part of the grounds for our complaint is that there is a less discriminatory way to go about this, including the training, better training for police officers so that they are really prepared to work in a school environment. there can also be protocols limiting the scope of their authority so that they are only really getting involved where there are issues of safety or blatant kind of unlawful activity. i would also point out, i am glad mr. canady mentioned the

community involvement. we need the data and oftentimes we don't get it. wade county was very difficult to get the data we had. they are not reporting to the federal government, getting us information about arrest and referrals to law enforcement broken down by race, race and disability, race and gender. we need this information. it's the public's right to know. >> makes a big difference in terms of the community's capacity to monitor what's going on. so training is important. we have to be able to monitor the situation to prevent these kinds of excessive policing. >> training. we appreciate you being with us and mo ccanady. thanks to both of you for being with us. >> thanks for having me on. >> thank you. >> wake county north carolina has led the state in its out-of-school suspension rate. in downtown really, a lawyer says it doesn't have to be this way. john powell is pioneering a new

approach, if only he says he can get more schools in wake county to listen >> reporter: all i knew was wham, a slap across the face and it was it. me and her were tumbling all over the floor in the bathroom. there was a girl in the bathroom and she, like tried to break it up but it was like nothing that she could do. >> torei davis is a generalior in raleigh north carolina. last year she got in a brawl with another girl over a guy. >> what was the consequence? >> police came, and we got locked up. when we got there, we was finger printed and they took my picture and everything. i did not cry. i stayed calm. the school doesn't even call my mom to let her know where i was at. >> like the kids at enloe high across town, davis was charged with disorderly conduct, a mi misdemean misdemeanor. she got killcked out of school r seven days when she said cause s caused her grades to tank. >> i ended up at the end of the

year failing english and g geomet geometry. >> they were in our adult system because of the rule in north carolina. >> john powell is a professor at camplin university law school in raleigh. >> with that young age, what are some of the consequences of that? >> to me, the most severe consequence is having a criminal record. even if they are never convicted, a charge in the adult system stays on a person's record. >> so i mean if you are applying for scholarships for school or potential job? i mean that's the way of the world now, where plug in your name? >> right. >> see what we can find. >> and you can't do that when a child is charged in the juvenile system because those records are sealed. you can't find a juvenile's charge. those records are private. as i think they should be. and if we could raise the age in north carolina, part of those protections would be put in place. >> powell has lobbied the north caroline apgen recall assembly to raise the aiming. so far, unsuccessfully but he

has had better luck as the director of the juvenile justice, we need to keep kids in school. the answer to success is not in having kids leave school. we need to keep kids in school. >> so zero tolerance isn't necessarily the bend-all, be-all. >> no. absolutely not. i think it's a big mistake. i want to look at everything on a indicates by case basis. when we implement a zero tolerance policy, we limit ourselves. we take away the ability to look at everything and respond appropriately. so who has been hurt? and how have you been hurt? once we understand that, the resolution becomes fairly simple. >> luckily for torei davis, broughton high school is one of the handful of pun schools has signed on with powell's approach. >> we brought them together. we led them in a conversation about why things happen, what happened, how everything was affected, and, also, in a

lengthy conversation to help them understand each other better. some of the challenges they were facing. >> did you think you would can hanging out with the personnel you had a beef with? >> honestly, no. we got through it and like now, i wouldn't say we are the best of friends, but we are really cool. >> more importantly, powell brokered a deal. >> well, the agreement between the public defender and the district attorney was that if we couldn't reach a satisfactory solution, the criminal charges would be dismissed. >> davis attends to graduate in may and attend winston salem state with a clean record. >> when you hear how the boys were arrested and those boys have that record, that arrow their record what goes through your head? >> that could have been me. combat america tonight" sarah hoye rejoining us. in a situation like enloe, everybody talks about it. everybody has heard about it. there were a lot of rumors ahead of time, too, some that maybe it wasn't going to be water in

knows water balloons. this is serious for officers. >> that's it. that's right. chatter on twitter, facebook where people are saying there might be some other substances, urine, bleach. who knows what? it's hard to say are you surprised that there was this reaction? what we are hearing from the people we spoke with, does it have to go that far afterwards? the police show up. aren't the schools and law enforcement agencies between a rock and a hard place? do they have to go to jail? do they have to have a record? does it stick with them for the rest of their lives? >> what is part of this complaint is that they are trying to say, listen. we need to slow down and figure out, is this fitting of the crime? >> sara hoe, correspondent following the story. thank you for being with us. >> thanks for having me, joie. >> john "america tonight," and soledad o'brien leading voices on education online as they discuss inequality in education

log onto watch the conversation develop and tell us what you think. you can weigh in on twitter using the hash tag, getting schooled. >> we will continue our in-depth look. we will do the math and see if an effort to keep kids out of trouble through algebra really as up? >> if a kid passes 9th grade math, he or she will graduate from high school. if she fails, he or she is likely to fail high school. >> is algebra the answer? we will speak with the head of the kahn academy on how his program may already be changing the way our kids learn math. consider this. the news of the day plus so much more. answers to the questions no one else will ask. >> it seems like they can't agree to anything in washington no matter what.

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taverna's sex crimes and what colleges do to protect students by their own classmates. with the help of students who

have become activists, bravelied spoken out in our towel hall, we have spot lighted an epidemic of campus sexual assault. it hasn't gotten much attention in washington until now. in a rare move, the president is launching a ground-breaking initiative to address college sexual assault creating a tax force called the white house counsel on women and girls, anow,sing the new task force at the whitehouse wednesday, the president describes sexual assault as a prior to person pr to -- priority for him. >> i will fight for you and your families and for others to step up across my administration and in congress and state capitols and college campuses on our military basis and across our country. this is a priority for me not only as president and commander and chief and as a husband and a father of two extraordinary girls. >> the president's report laid out some disturbing statisticsibs, one in five female students are sexually

assaulted on u.s. college campuses, shockingly, only 12 percent of those victims report the incidence. the president says the response by authorities is often inadequate. he linked the inadequate response to police bias and the lack of training in dealing with section annualing assault. the report reveals that some 22 million women in this country are raped in their lifetimes. but even as the president announces bold new steps to address sexual crimes, some are taking matters into their hands with a novel legal strategy. >> it happened typically within two minutes that i was -- my head was slammed into a bathroom door and then again, next to the toilet and, you know, the assault proceeded. >> putting my hands on the sink and just like looking at myself in the mirror and not even being able to fully comprehend what had just happened and it was just like i need to get out of

here. >> these women say they were raped at a place most of us assume will be a haven of learning and of safety: college. annie was a freshman & dra aa sophomore, the university of north carolina at chapel hill. each said the university failed to protect them or give them the support they needed afterward. >> the last thing i would want to do is to walk into an office immediately after and say, this happened to me. this happened to me. this happened to me and to be questioned about it for hours upon hours. i know when i did report, because i did, i was blamed for my own experience. >> what does that mean, "blamed"? >> i was told that rape was like a football game and i should look back on my experience if i was playing this game and what would i have done differently do avoid that situation. there is depression, eating disorder, cutting, internal

blame and a lot of that burdenep is placed on the victim to change her life style because, it's your fault. you've got to get over it, figure out what i can do to make it better. >> since 1972, the u.s. department of education under title ix of the civil rights act has said institutions receiving federal funds must ensure an education free of sexual discrimination. the law is usually associated with equality in sports. but many colleges and universities say they were unaware of their legal obligations under title ix to also protect students from sexual assaults. historically, critics say schools have generally looked the other way or worse, cord it up. >> melinda manning is a former unc dean who is dissatisfied with the university's handling of assault complaints. >> i think we were reluctant to classify as a sexual assault because it would get counted in the official numbers. we absolutely put much more

emphasis on preventing plag arrestism than rape. that was a reality. plaguerism that was a reality. >> though annie graduated she and andrea found each other. they began to talk about the issue of rape at the university of north carolina and made the decision to take a stand. >> the frame we intentionally used was saying this is not a unc problem, not because somebody messed up in the dean of students'. we said unc isn't a bad place. it is a representation of a larger cultural problem. >> the women began researching title ix, interviewing other victims of rape, utilizing social media and, in january of 2013, along with former unc administrateo melinda manning and two others, they filed a federal complaint against the university of north carolina at the department of education. >> i think this is a microcosm of what is happening across the country. we are seeing these crimes are

committed. the university is sweeping them under the rug. the department of education, not holding anyone accountable and students are being the ones who say this is not okay. so when you have 18 and 19-year-old men and women who are holding the government accountable for rape like it just -- it boggers my mind. >> as for annie and andrea, they have turned their or deals into a mission to bring light into a part of campus light that has been too long in shadow. >> in the shadows not too much longer, we hope. president obama is giving the task force ninety days to recommend actions that colleges can take to prevent rape and sexual assault and respond to allegations. coming up next, keeping the focus on that chemical spill in west virginia. doctors warn there are new signs that the trouble isn't over. >> every sunday night,

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now, a snapshot of stories making headlines on "america tonight." detroit's financial woes getting

a boost with strings attached. $350 million over 20 years to help detroit get out of bankruptcy sooner. snyder acknowledged, though, the money will note help mentioners whole and wants new oversight in return for the state funds. the planned execution of a mexican national is on hold while the u.s. supreme court considers appeals from his attorneys. he was set to die wednesday evening for killing a houston police officers 20 years ago. this case has drawn criticism from the mexican government and the u.s. state department. israeli officials say they have interrupted an al-qaeda plan to attack the u.s. embassy in tel aviv. the country's internal security agency reported three palestinians were arrested on christmas day after their alleged online recruitment by al-qaeda. more west virginians are using tap water again two weeks after a frightening chemical spill in the elk river near charleston. as we continue to keep a sharp

focus on the developments there, doctors are continuing to warn about their concerns, especially about how little is known about the risks created by the spill. now, the cd c acknowledges it should have done more to warn pregnant women about drinking water and residents are hearing there is more to that spill than the early alarms indicated. >> adding new fears, the dis closure a second chemical leaked into the elk river as a noxious licorice substance entered the waters. >> it was something that they mixed with it and according to the folks from freedom who revealed this to us yesterday, they thought they had stopped mixing that material and just recently discovered that it was in the tank with the mchm when the leak occurred. >> faced with worries about what did or didn't reach their water, west virginians wonder whether

they are getting full story. the latest news was on facebook. >> how scary was that that nobody knew what was in the tank and how to respond once the stuff came out of the tank that should have never come out of the tank in the first place? >> indeed, now, officials admit there is plenty of untapety. >> there is a little bit we k w know? >> we knowm we know it's not a carcinogen, highly toxic. >> more areas have been given the all clear but that doesn't remove the doubt. >> when i saw that there -- you know, there is this new chemical, one of many, i'm sure, nothing at this point can surprise me. and i will never use the tap water here again ever. >> we spoke with dr. elizabeth brown who treated some when the story first broke. there is a lot of concern about this, what people don't know even now. is there an effort underway by

federal or state officials to try to get the information from you doctors on the front line, what you are seeing and what you are treating? >> i am not so sure there is. i have not been approached by anyone from the local health department or from the cd c asking for what i am seeing. i have kind of taken it upon myself to report to the local media the concerns that i am seeing from my patients and some of the symptoms because i think that is important to make the population informed. so that it would work in conjunction with the health agencies so that we could all work on this and hopefully present it from happening again. >> sure. other doctors, is there any other way for doctors to know? i guess you were just all any patients you see, you see and individually try to assess whether there is any connection between the patients you see. but there is no database? there is no way to monitor this in a broader since?

>> that's correct. >> that's my understanding. i ha i have not heard of any such database. what i have taken upon myself to do in my office is to create a spreadsheet for use only in my. of the patients who are coming in with us supposed symptoms due to the chemical leaks. >> which are what sorts of things are you seeing? >> well, i am still seeing the itching, the rashes, especially with people doing laundry and now taking showers. i still see people who are having some of the nausea and the sore throats, the flu-like symptoms, dizziness. i am keeping track of all of these patients and the outcomes of their blood work and other physical findings, and i am going to be following them over the lifetime of my practice, hopefully 20 to 30 years just so that we can learn from this. hopefully how to avoid it in the future. >> have other physicians could forward to you and said, dr.

brown, i heard you have seen some? we have had this, too. >> i haven't had any communication from other physicians directly. some of the o fort worth. bgyn doors saying if you are pressugnan pregnant, we recommend an alternative water source for drinking and cooking. i have heard of pediatricians making ougautomated phone calls their parents of nair patients having them not to give them to their children, the water that is. none of the local agencies have either. >> doctor brown, we appreciate you following up and continuing to talk to us about all of this, dr. elizabeth brown in west virginia, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> on to the cold. out in the winter weather, the blast of winter chill which has blanketed so much of the midwest and northeast has come and gone and left behind bone-chilling temperatures. millions of americans digging out this morning in the brutally

cold arctic air, six inches fell until new york city, new york city buried in almost a foot of powder but it's not the snow that that has people shivering. it's the windchill. deep freeze expected to last the rest of this month. oh, no. new arctic blasts on the way as well we hear from meteorologist kevin korveau. you can tell us there is more cold on the way? >> it is here, joie. it is here especially the northeast. let's go back 24 hours ago when we were dealing with the snow here on the radar. let's put this into motion. it lasted until about 6:00 a.m. when it finally, cleared out. this is what we are left with, but this is all of that arctic air. we saw a lot of snow in the area. let's look and see up towards the parts of massachusetts, 18.3 inches. central park, as you said, almost a foot of snow there. now, the cold temperatures.

high temperatures are no going to get that much watcher. bot 18 degrees we think by the time we get to the weekend, we will be back to normal. deep south dealing with hard freeze warnings. take a look at some of the morning temperatures they are expected to see. atlanta, 21 degrees tomorrow morning over towards orlando, 37 degrees, believe it or not, as we go towards friday morning, these temperatures are actually going to be lower. atlanta, we expect to see about 17 degrees as the morning low on friday morning. we hope expect to see water mains breaking in this area. >> that's one of the things down in the back to you. >> thanks very much for being with us. >> next, military leaders make a plea to the president to keep a promise he made five years ago. will the rest of those being held at guantanamo ever be freed? >> evey sunday night,

join us for exclusive, revealing, and suprizing talks with the most interesting people of our time. >> our journalists are the best journalists in the world. >> she's the first female executive editor of the new york times. >> there's no question that the editorial stance is a liberal point of view. >> the head of the paper of record goes on the record with talk to al jazeera. only on al jazeera america.

sglofrning. >> coming up, peace talks on the syrian civil war take an ugly turn. we will ask ryan crocker if a settlement is possible. should a man's rye violent rap lyrics help send him to prison. crash tests send the alarm over small cars. which size is safest? the latest in the post-game rant, what he said today and why race is taking center stage. we will see you at the top of the hour.

. days into his first term, president obama signed an executive order to close the detention camp at guantanamo bay, cuba. that was 5 years ago and the prison remains open. guantanamo holds 155 detain easy from 21 countries, just some of the 800 detainees who have spent time there sips it first opened in 2002. half of the 155 men still there have been cleared for release by the pentagon, but they remain behind bars. a mass hunger strike by scores of detainees began almost a year ago brought attention and renewed public pressure to shut down the camp. 33 detain easy are still refusing to eat. many are being force fed in a facility that costs u.s. taxpayers $454 million a year to maintain. a letter to president obama on tuesday, more than 30 retired military brass called on the

president to release all of the detain easy as soon as possible. guantanamo does not serve america's interests as long as it remains open, guantanamo will undermine america's security and stat under the circumstances as a nation where human rights and the rule of law matter. >> one of the signees is retired army brigadier general steven zenakas. he joins us here. general, i am struck by this. men at your level, military leaders coming forwards and saying, mr. president, we appreciate what you have said so far. but we would like this to move forward. why was it so important for you to do that? >> because we think it affirms what we stand for as a country. and what we are recognized as a country that we are a democracy that follows the rule of law. we have confidence in our judicial system and we clearly feel these men can be tried in

the american courts in the united states. we think that guantanamo is a -- it still detracts from the safety and security of our country. it endangers americans. we think in the broader picture, it's important to close it and show the world that we do abide by our word and we are confident in what we can do. >> you know, there was another element to the letter, and that refers to a report, a very, very extensive, very, very detailed report into the interrogation tactics that have been used. and this could be quiet explosive. but you called for the full release redacted to whatever it needs to be but the full release of some 6,000 pages. >> right. this is a report that was done by the senate select committee on intelligence. 6300 pages. it costs $40 million. it has really documented the

interrogations and the treatment that many of these men had. one apprehended even before they came to guantanamo. we think that it should be disclosed. we think that the world should know that we are going to own up to what has happened. >> even if it was awful. >> even if it was awful. we admit it. we admit whatever mistakes were made. we will no longer commit such acts and that we are going to own up to it. we are not going to in any way continue those policies and practices. and we think the world should understand that we are going to be transparent about what happened. >> you continue to go to guantanamo yourself, in december. what is the life of these men like now? >> the life, i mean it is difficult for many of them, particularly since the hunger strikes because the reaction that the authorities had to the hunger strikes was to put them in separate cells, to isolate

them. this is a culture where the men live in communities and they lived in groups, and even though they were outside of and transplanted out of their homes in areas that they were familiar with, they did have a chance to c congrega congregate. it's been demoralizing and it has acthasketed their -- affect their life. >> this is devastating on psyche for people who were never tried for anything and never convicted. >> it's no wonder many decide they are going to go on a hunger strike because they are hopeless. they don't see an end to this. they see it continuing forever. >> you would like to see it stop. >> it needs to stop. >> thanks for being with us. >> thanks so much. >> ahead in our final segment, a look at remarkable technology

bringing new mobility, robots coming up next >> thats an indirect equation, i would say. >> algebra is the answer part of our week long ln-depth series. >> only on al jazeera america. al jazeera america gives you the total news experience anytime, anywhere. more on every screen. digital, mobile, social.

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sxwrarn tweaking life's unexpected turns with a robot. imagine being impossible to eat a meal, hug your children? it's almost incomprehens ill. one man's severe disability inspired in him the ability to do anything. al jazeera science and technology correspondent, jacob ward >> reporter: for more than a decade, henry evans has started the day with help from his wife, janie? >> do you feel like i have missed anything? >> in 2002, at the age of 40, evans, an athletic father of 4 suffered a becausalar dissection, a rare congenital defect. he became mute and quadra

plegic. >> he is completely paralyzed, a little bit over a month afterwards, he gained some movement in his index and thumb >> reporter: with therapy, he regained some movement in his head and thumb and communicates with his wife through a letter board. >> tell me how this works. >> see, what i tell people when we are doing this letter board, it's all in order. ab cd efg, hig. help re, go ahead and say something on the board. you see his eyes are right around here? >> right. >> let's say he gets a letter amend it's wrong. g. see how he shakes his head? >> how i know it's wrong. wego, alo. we got a lot. fa -- faster whe, when, sde decides, t-o when she decides to

put words in my mouth. like i just did. >> they have been communicating this way for so long that they really don't even need the board anymore. she can guess the words he is spelling just from the movement of his eyes. they met as teenagers in their hometown of st. louis, missouri. >> our first date was like everything clicked. the jokes, the humor. i knew after that first date i was going to marry him. >> they got married after college and moved to california where evans earned an mba from stanford and took a job in silicon valley. they began a family. clive was clicking into place. >> help rewas a doer. he was a chief financial officer. everything was done, 100 miles an hour. >> today, evans communicates with people outside of his family mostly through e-mail. >> want that closer, henry? >> a device on his lap trop tracks his head movements using a small dot attached to his glasses. it allows him to control the cursor and type out words.

he responded through audio software to interview questions we sent him in advance. >> tell us about your life before the basalar artery dissection? >> i had a full life before my illness. the last thing i expected was a life-altering health problem when i opened my eyes, i saw my parents, who lived 2,000 miles away. apparently all six of my siblings had also flown and the doctors had told them to expect a funeral. literally, all i could move were my eyes. >> that sounds like a horrific circumstance to wake up to. how did it affect you emotionally to discover you were in that condition? >> i was an emotional wreck for three years. after the stroke mostly because the emotional center of my brain had been destroyed. i i broke out either laughing uncontrollably or crying despondently several times an hour. >> he described to me once, i feel like i am a ghost looking in on my family, just complete

isolation. he begged me to take his life, begged me. he had it all planned out, thattists to shoot him and bury him in the backyard. >> ready, 1, 2, 3. >> slowly, evans came to terms with his situation and began to think about how he could use technology to participate in the world outside his home. >> i was lying in bed, watching cnn, when professor charlie kemp from georgia tech came on and demonstrated a robot. >> you can move to the side and it would follow you. you will find that turns. >> that's interesting. >> i immediately thought of using it as a body surrogate and e-mailed the company. to my surprise, they answered right away. >> it was the first of many e-mails that evans sent to robot scientists across the country to launch a project called robots for humanity. >> we are actually working on a 3-pronged program which will greatly expand the world of people worldwide. we hope to make tele presence

devices physically located in interesting locales across the united states available to people from around the world. >> the leap for human tin was -- to work for humanity was a change, using robots to try to free up paralyzed people. it could be something as small as holding a plastic device so that henry could rub his head on it appeared scratch his head for the first time. >> at brown university in rhode island, chad jenkins studies human robot interaction and robot learning. >> it is about enabling anybody who wants to use and control robots. take the access for robots from research lab stories and make them accessible. >> he created software for people like evans to control robots as body sur r surroga testament s.

>> it works with so many different devices such as those used by the physically disabled. >> one recent project produced a web interface to control a quad copter drone equipped, it enables people like evans to explore places they can't individuavisit physically. >> it overheard to me i didn't need my whole body to explore the world. i just needed the camera drone. it seemed perfect. within a few weeks, i was flying chad's drone. >> after so much time in one place, it offers a feeling of freedom. henry is actually a very aggressive flier, a very aggressive pilot. we have had any number of crashes. he wants to do all sorts of things we have never imagined before. henry wants to fly and land the drone on his basketball hoop. he wanted to inspect the solar pams on his roof. i never thought about flying on a roof and going and looking at things so closely. it's his imagination that's

pushing us in new directions. >> evans now visits the lab several times a week by remote presence device. sometimes, just for a game of robot soccer. what do people in your position need for robotics? >> i don't see any way to become completely independent through the use of robotic technologies. how far, if you are familiar with any quadriplegics you know that it doesn't take much to significantly improve their plight. body surrogates allows a paralyzed person to manipulate their environment without the help of another person. it's the physical aspect of exercise and free will, which is what makes us feel fully human. >> you could say, why are we spending the time and the research money to do all of this when it's cheaper to hire a caregiver or me. i come free.

but it's the independence of knowing, i did this for myself that is huge. and that is what are the big things i saw robots did from henry. >> we will have more of ameri"aa tonight" tomorrow. ... welcome to al jazeera america. i am john siegenthaler seeing in new york. here are tonight's top stories. we are just learning the u.s. supreme court has denied a stay of execution for the mexican national in texas tonight,

46-year-old edgar tamayo, convicted of killing a police officer 20 years ago. his lawyers argue he did not receive legal help from mexico immediately after his arrest. he is expected to be executed tonight. >> for the first time, protests in ukraine have turned deadly. three demonstrators were killed. today, the president met with opposition leaders but no agreement. anti-government leaders say if their demands are not met, they will go on the offensive. in switzerland, a diplomatic face-off, the syrian government and opposition at the table were at the table for the first time. a u.n. madeator will meet both sides tomorrow to try to arrange direct talks this friday. israel said it has prevented an al-qaeda attack on the u.s. embassy in tel aviv and other targets. three palestinian men have been arrested in connection with that plot. israel says they were recruited by al-qaeda -- an operative based in the gas a strip. the state department says the u.s. has not been able to verify

israel's claims. those are the headlines. i am john siegenthaler seeing. i will see you here at 11 eastern, 8 passiffic. consider this is up next. the latest news on aljazeera.com. we will see you later on tonight. >> syria strikes back at critics. former u.s. ambassador ryan crocker weighs in on the it couldtentious peace talks. why can't america's military seem to win wars outright anymore. should violent rap lyrics help put the author behind bars? you might want to think twice before buying a smaller car. hello. i am antonio morrow. welcome to "consider this." more on what's ahead. >> anything but peaceful today at the conference that is aimed at e