i'm richelle carey, "america tonight" with joie chen is next. thank you for your time. do keep it here. >> maint investigates. "america tonight" investigates. beaten up by sheriffs deputies. >> i had four or five came around and i heard this. >> denied medical care. >> she would sit and cry and say please please take me to the hospital. i need them to stitch it up. >> and a botched execution. >> deprive them of oxygen for 25 minutes as they slowly die in front of their family. it would take a big imagination

to come one a more brutal form of execution than that. >> good evening, i'm joie chen. crime and punishment, they go together, that's understood. but when the punishment involves brutality, neglect, even torture, something has gone terribly wrong with our criminal justice system. not only unconscionable, it's unconstitutional. we beginning with the largest jail in the country, run by the los angeles police department. the jailers themselves had been indicted for criminal behavior. merrick michael okwu reports. >> at that point i'm lying face down with my face on the ground, my hands behind my back and i have about four or five officers

come around me. and then i hear this crack. >> anything else? >> that's what happens says leo fifigueroa. when he went to vista his visits brother. he was arrested and being held at the jail. juan, a veteran of desert storm. he had had a few minor scrapes with the law but they didn't amount to much. what he heard left him stunned. >> your brother calls you from jail tells you his teeth are busted? and what else? >> that his ribs are broken. >> did he give you any indication how he attend those injuries? >> los angeles sheriffs. >> that the los angeles sheriffs had in fact hurt him?

>> yes. >> and did you believe that? >> yes. >> figueroa went to the jail hoping to see his brother. after he got what he said was a run around, he approached a deputy in the waiting area, so began the situation. >> i heard stop resisting, stop resisting, i yelled down, i'm in handcuffs. >> this is an x ray of figueroa's arm. >> how is your arm now? >> it is very weak. >> is there still pain? >> yes. >> the jail system run by the los angeles county sheriffs department is the largest in the country. critics say it's also one of the worst. a place where beatings and broken bones are a part of the culture of the area, condoned by the department's brats including the sheriff lee baca.

baca stepped down in late january. baca's resignation was hastened by the story of 18 officers, who stepped down. after leo figueroa was injured he was questioned by a supervisor in charge of the visitors area. sergeant eric gonzalez. gonzalez repeatedly pressed figueroa suggesting he was responsible for the attack. >> at some point you were told to leave? >> i was not told to leave. i was backing away from the officer. >> why ca did you back away? >> i'm not going to tell you, who are the watch commander? >> did you have that tone of voice with the officer? >> no, that's what they're telling me. >> just medical tension right? appears to be --

>> ahhh! >> pain mountain left arm red and swelling. >> gonzalez didn't like it when visitors disrespected deputies. so he encouraged those under his command to conduct unreasonable search and seizures and to make unlawful arrest. fifigueroa was held for five da. >> i didn't do anything to the deputies that i was involved with and they know that. the bottom line is they know that. >> it wasn't just jailhouse visitors like figueroa who were mistreated by deputies. the indictments make clear, inmates were badly treated as well. >> brutally beatleen by three

deputies. >> sonia is an attorney who represents several inmates. >> his face is beaten to a pulp. >> his eyes were black and blue and shut for a month and his ankle was broken in four different parts. >> what did he do to provoke this kind of beating? >> he didn't do anything to provoke that kind of beating. >> in their depositions, deputies contend that in the cell he became unruly. but he was unarmed dressed only in his underwear and was being physically detained when many of the beatings were rendered. sheriffs deputies could be heard joking about the man's injuries. if you are difficult in jail you will be disciplined. everyone assumes that. >> that's right. >> why should we care if these are disciplined? >> if you are difficult in jail,

you should be disciplined, but the punishment shouldn't be i just get to beat you. because you took a flashlight that's 40 ounces and you beat his ankle until it broke in four or five different places. that is not punishment, that is brutality. >> after suing the department and the officers involved, the jury unanimously awarded the plaintiff $125,000. the deputies involved also agreed to pay $165,000 in punitive penalties. the sheriff wouldn't comment and sheriff baca declined our request for an interview. however, we were given a tour of the men's central jail. by the man who was sent here to cheen thing -- to clean things .

captain danielle dyer has been on the job for seven months. >> what was your first reaction when you heard there were guards that were physically abusing not only some of the inmates but the visitors of those inmates. >> you know, disbelief. >> he blames a lot of the problems on poor morale, officers working at the jail as a temporary stop to more glamorous job in the rest of the organization. >> how critical is your job here? >> most of my staff have come to realize, the rapport with the deputies and the inmateless it reallinmates itreally is. >> is there buttes happening at the jail or has abuse in the past happened at the jail?

>> we had problems back then as rampant as some of the media pour trays it? no. they work with some of the toughest l.a. street criminals. >> i'm sure you've got great, dedicated people but you know, it sounds a little bit like spin when you say that it might have been overblown by the media. we're talking about 18 separate individuals here. >> no, there's no doubt here. >> current and past. that's a lot of folk. >> is a lot of folks. there is serious allegations and we take each one of those extremely series. we've done a lot of things since then. i've almost doubled my supervision, we've changed protocols when it cox t comes to force. we've gone back to drawing board on that up one. >> as for lee figueroa, the jury awarded him $300,000.

he has been working towards a master's degree. in the end, though, figueroa says what's most important is that the truth of what happened to him is finally coming out so that a stay or even just a visit to the l.a. county jail is no longer a light-threatening experience. >> coming up on "america tonight," states are farming out prison medical care but at what cost? >> and so they decided that the best thing to do with this would be to pack it with kitchen sugar. >> sugar? >> sugar. >> heavily armed, combat tactics >> every little podunk wants their tank and their bazooka... >> with s.w.a.t. raids on the rise... >> when it goes wrong, it goes extremely wrong... >> what's the price for militarizing our police >> they killed evan dead >> faul lines, al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> there blocking the door... >> ground breaking...

>> we have to get out of here... >> truth seeking... break though investigative documentary series... new episode, deadly force: arming america's police only on al jazeera america

>> welcome back. arizona heed leads a growing ta goal to cuss costs. but a new record finds that that can lead to negligence and for some, tragedy. this is "america tonight"'s adam knight. >> ryan claire is a five month old happy and healthy baby girl. she lives with her mother and the rest of the family in the small farming town of safford, arizona. it is a four hour drive and a

world away from where she was born at the state prison complex in goodyear, arizona. her mother is still there. >> this is a beautiful picture we took together. >> two years ago when reagan was 18 years old she was arrested for having prescription painkillers illegally and the sentenced her to spriz prison, where she found out she was pregnant. two and a half years behind bars. >> how did reagan react when she found out that she was going to be sentenced to two and a half years, and she's pregnant at the same time? >> reagan is very -- she holds her emotions very well. but once she's talking to me alone, it's you know a complete devastation. >> reporter: but that was just the beginning. reagan was transferred from

county jail to perryville state prison where jud jody says her daughter was denied prenatal care. >> and the baby was born small? >> yes, small. it just infuriates me. >> after 48 hours in labor, reagan had to have a c section. and the medical staff didn't stitch it shut. they just dressed it with butterfly bandages. >> bit about day 3 she's -- by about day 3 she's noticing it's oozing, and getting in effected. shin effect -- infected. to be able to look inside her body was just freaking her out and she would just sit and cry and say please please take me to a hospital. you know? i feed them to stitch it up.

it needs to be closed. and they told her, if you come back we're going to start giving you tickets. >> and a ticket is a bad behavior notification? >> it's a bad behavior notification. i truly believe i could have lost my daughter had they not given her antibiotics prior. >> jody said two weeks later they finally brought her to the hospital inside the prison. but her daughter's ordeal was not over next. >> they decided she had been there long enough, she could go to her yard. but it was still open a little bit. they decided the best thing to do would be to catc pack it with kitchen sugar. >> sugar? >> sugar, what you get because they donate it from mcdonald's, burger king, they are standing there opening little packets of sugar filling that wound packing it in with what's left.

>> sugar from a fast food restaurant? >> yes. >> sugar was used to pack wounds before the advent of antibiotics, but it is no longer considered acceptable practice. "america tonight" asked them to comment but they refused. in the middle of the conversation with jody, reagan called home. >> i'm adam may, i'm going to ask you a few questions. after you had the c section what happened to you? >> i looked down and it was coming open. i needed to be seen right away. >> back up for a second. how big was the wound? >> it was big enough for me to be able to put my fist in it. the worst pain i ever have been through in my life. >> reagan confirmed the detail

about what her mother had told us about the kitchen sugar. >> they were ripping open packages and putting it in. >> what do you think needs to be done here? >> we are not -- don't believe this. >> reagan is not the oan only ie alleging mistreatment. it allegation that prisoners are at, quote, substantial risk of pain, amputation, disfigurement and death. >> the general attitude and far too many in this society is who cares? >> dan pikoda of arizona's aclu, says in his 40 year career he has never seen a worst prison system. a year ago, the state turned the

operation over to a private for profit company. >> the main goal is to reduce the cost that are attributable to the prison function. people are often sent to prison for a two-year three-year sentence that turned into death sentence because of basic minimal care. >> coming up here. states are running out of drugs for lethal injections and scrambling for alternatives. sit a death sentence or -- is it a death sentence orator chur? >> he was straining against the restraints which were holding his legs and his arms. more. answers to the questions no one else will ask. >> it seems like they can't agree to anything in washington no matter what.

>> there's an ongoing crisis in the criminal justice system. prisons are running out of the lethal drugs needed to perform executions. and are turning to some experimental substitutions. one resulted in a very cruel and unusual death. "america tonight"'s chris bury reports. >> christofo sepulveda, argued the state planned to experiment

on the 70-year-old condemned man. >> we believe there's going to be a serious risk that there will be plain and suffering that is unavoidable that will be inflicted on mr. sepulveda and it shouldn't be. >> mcguire was convicted in 1994, for the rape and murder of a pregnant newl newlywed. the system had run out of lethal drugs. the sedative medazalam and the drug hydr hydromorphone. mcguire's son says he feared what might happen with ohio's new lethal cocktail. >> we had a feeling something was going to be going wrong.

the doctors had told him something was going to happen. he had a feeling, he just had a gut feeling that something was going to go wrong during the execution. >> that gut feeling became a valued. >> we expected him to go to sleep, that's what we expected. >> i've seen about 18 and this differed drastically. >> he had never seen an execution anything like it. >> this one was different because after three to four minutes dennis mcguire began gasping for breath, he was making a snorting sound almost a choking sound at times. i didn't notice it at first but his left hand which had been waving at his kids had about clenching into a fist.

>> i noticed my watch, it was about 10:31, 10:32 a.m. i had difficulty seeing the exact time because i was crying at the time. >> mcguire's son read from an affidavit about exactly what he saw in a death chamber. >> he then made a noise that sounded like he was fighting for air and grunting at the same time. it was extremely loud. while this was happening, the war deden and the guy in the whe hitter had horrified looks on their faces, it appeared that they were shocked with the way it was happening. >> one of his lawyers had asked him to put on a big show but he had refused. a claim that ohio officials could not substantiate. now mcguire's family is filing a lawsuit to stop ohio from using the drug combination that

killed him arguing that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. in when you strap somebody to a board, deprive them of oxygen for 25 minutes as they slowly die in front of their family, it would come up with a good imagination to come up with a more brutal form of execution than that. >> and mcguire said they used his father as a test subject for an experimental drug combination. >> i believe that my dad shouldn't have been an experiment. i believe they shouldn't have experimented with anybody let alone my father. >> that states such as ohio and louisiana are having trouble finding lethal injection drugs is no accident. major pharmaceutical companies have stopped shipping them american prisons. they buckled under pressure of death penalty opponents including reprieve, based in london. >> it's also a pr problem, it's

also a commercial problem for them. >> so state prison started acquiring the drugs in secret, sometimes from oversees. nebraska had tried to, sodium thiopentyl. here at the nebraska state prison, authorities were unable to acquire that lethal drug for the state's first execution after abolishing the electric chair. she was ordered to obtain it from outside the country which means it would have been a violation of fda rules. pharmacist diane booker who left her job in 2011 asked us not to show her face. >> what did your boss tell you to do? >> to acquire sodium thiopental by any means necessary.

>> because it was not legal here? >> the last manufacturer in the united states stopped making it yes. >> what was his response? >> even though you can't get it, it is not fda approved, you can't possibly use it for execution. >> booker says her boss ignored her directions around obtained it from a foreign producer. nebraska would not comment. compoundincompounding pharm. nebraska refused to reveal exactly where they're getting their lethal dprupgz. >> idrugs. >> they say it's not important, move on. we're saying no, it's not that simple and that we need to see because we're killing somebody in the name of the state of louisiana. and all of the citizens. >> in january, louisiana prison

officials revealed a new execution protocol after acknowledging they could not get pentobarbitol, the drug louisiana has used before. so they used the same drug that killed mcguire in ohio. with drugs never before tried for that purpose should be reason nf to prevent other executions like it, according to the lawsuit his family is bringing. >> that no other family went through what we had to do, that no other family in the united states had to deal with what we had to deal with, what we had to witness. >> the last minute stay of accusation, gives sepulveda's lawyers, the right to say this can be cruel and unusual

punishment. >> thanks for joining us for this special edition of "america tonight." if you would like to know anything more about this, log on to aljazeera.com/americatonight. i'm joie chen. thanks for being with us. >> every day across america, military-style raids are taking place. local police dressed like soldiers break down doors in the hunt for drugs. >> this is not what we think of as police in a democratic society. this is way out of proportion. >> in the past, police "swat teams" were only used in extreme circumstances. now, they're increasingly sent