Skip to main content

tv   Lockup Raw  MSNBC  July 23, 2011 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT

4:00 pm
due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. >> msnbc takes you behind the walls of america's most notorious prisons into a world of chaos and danger. now the scenes you've never seen. "lockup: raw." >> for some inmates, a prison sentence means nothing left to lose. >> what the [ bleep ]. >> if i'm ever put in general population i'm as good as dead. >> but sometimes life has other plans. >> it's either him or me at that point. >> this [ bleep ] was real.
4:01 pm
it was all there was. >> people often ask me if we've ever had a member of our production crew attacked or somehow hurt in a prison. and fortunately the answer to that is no. security is always at the forefront of our minds. our crews are very experienced and know how to carry themselves in prison and never get too comfortable. but the reality of prison is you can go from calm and quiet to a life and death conflict in an instant. >> about halfway through ten weeks of filming for our "extended stay" series in alabama, our crew experienced that reality firsthand. they had just finished a routine interview with an inmate in his cell. it was a little after 12:00 noon. >> there was a phone call, and one of our producers went back to get this phone call and if it wasn't for that, we would have been gone. we would have been out to lunch. as we're standing there waiting for our producer to finish with
4:02 pm
their phone call these officers run by. so obviously i turn the camera, press record and roll with them. >> suddenly all these officers ran by me and we heard all this commotion and i saw an inmate who was wearing white covered in blood. brian our cameraman and i both started filming immediately and realized that a stabbing had taken place. it was such a chaotic scene that i was trying to keep track of what everybody was doing. some of the officers were trying to rescue the stabbing victim. other officers were going after the assailant. >> i got a knife. >> the funny part about that experience was i was so caught up with the officers and what they were doing, i didn't notice until later that i ran right by the actual person that did the stabbing and in the video you can see the knife, you can see the officer standing with the guy that did the stabbing, but i
4:03 pm
followed the action through to the victim. >> hold that. >> come on. >> go, go, go. >> move it. >> lock him up. >> move it. >> move. >> where are you heading? >> he could have probably killed him if he wanted to. looked like he might have got an artery. it was gushing out pretty good. >> we followed the victim all the way into the ambulance and one of my favorite moments of that show was the warden going out to the ambulance to see what was happening and then him turning around to walk back in the building and saying, lock it down. you know, that's it. we're going to figure out what's happening here and i'm still in control. let's go. >> lock it down. all right? >> warden greg culiver placed the prison on lockdown, confining every inmate to his
4:04 pm
cell. >> lock down. we are under a lockdown. >> all right, lockdown, gentlemen. take it in, let's go. let's go. >> several days later, the victim was released from the hospital and recovered in the prison's medical unit. >> we tried to get interviews with both the victim of the stabbing as well as the perpetrator of the stabbing. the victim was an adamant no. he did not want to participate in the documentary. eventually the assailant said he would talk to us. >> our interview with the stabber terry moore gave insight into how little it takes to prompt a potentially deadly attack in prison. >> what happened? >> i had an assault on an inmate. >> why? >> because he had stole my shoes. >> actually this was not a surprise to me. in prison, you have very few possessions. your resources are limited and if somebody comes and takes one of your possessions, two things happen, "a," you lose something that could very well be useful to you and "b," you will be perceived as a weaker person if you don't retaliate.
4:05 pm
>> well, i just come here from work one day, they were missing and which is one good thing about holman, they talk about everything here. so i knew it was just a matter of time to find out who had gotten them. >> moore and the inmate alleged to have stolen his shoes work together in the prison laundry. >> so i just started making my plans how i was going to deal with it from then. it took me about four days. >> what took you four days. >> to get a knife and decide where i was going to get him at. >> moore says he decided to attack the inmate in a back hallway near the laundry. >> population has no accidents back there. just a few guys and that one officer. >> it was kind of surprising how calm and pragmatic he was in telling us the story about the stabbing incident. >> i'm not proud of it but i'm not ashamed of it either. that's what i feel like i had to do and i did it. >> had you tried talking to him before you stabbed him or --
4:06 pm
>> it doesn't work like that. >> it doesn't work. >> moore went on to explain when his shoes first came up missing the inmate he later attacked claimed to have known who stole them. he allegedly told moore that the thief would give the shoes back in exchange for a valuable prison commodity, three bags of coffee. >> i thought, well, okay, three bags of coffee, if i can get it back without going to lockup don't have to stab no one or get in a fight or what have you so i think, okay, i'll go with three bags of coffee. >> moore says that after giving the coffee to his co-worker, he was told his shoes couldn't be returned. they had been confiscated by staff. >> obviously he just robbed me for the three bags too. so i had no choice. either i let it go and i let him come back and steal everything i own or i deal with it. in this case i deal with it. >> what kind of shoes were they. >> oh, they were just $42 pair of nike running shoes. but it didn't matter if they
4:07 pm
cost $10 or $100. but that coffee alone was enough to do who i did. >> that's the way it is here? >> that's the way it is where i live. >> terry was very clear about how his actions were justified even though they were extreme actions because that was part of prison life. that he almost killed a human being because the guy stole his shoes. the irony to me was the fact that terry was in prison for robbery. >> because he was already serving a life sentence, moore did not receive any new criminal charges for the stabbing. but was kept in lockdown until his transfer to another prison later that year. >> it was not the first stabbing. probably won't be the last time. >> terry, what if he would have died. >> that was something he should have thought of when he took my stuff. was it worth it to him or a question for me to answer? coming up -- >> any prison gang would be
4:08 pm
happy to get their hands on shawn gains. >> the leader of a white supremacist gang faces a whole new reality. >> if i'm ever put in general population i'm as good as dead. [ male announcer ] get ready for the left lane. the volkswagen autobahn for all event is back. right now, get a great deal on new volkswagen models, including the jetta, awarded a top safety pick by the iihs. that's the power of german engineering. hurry in and lease the jetta s for just $179 a month. ♪ visit vwdealer.com today.
4:09 pm
as much as i can about a company before i invest in it. that's why i like fidelity. they give me tools and research i can't get anywhere else. their stock screener lets me search for stocks with more than 140 criteria. i can see what their experts are thinking and even call them to bounce an idea off of one of their investment professionals. a good strategy relies on good insight. if you wanted to learn more about a company, i think you'd actually have to be there.
4:10 pm
4:11 pm
when we visited the special management unit at the maricopa county jail in phoenix, arizona, we were struck by how different it felt from the rest of the facility. >> this is where the killers, rapists, the most violent offenders are housed and when you get up there, it has a very feel than other areas of the jail and that's because there's an eerie silence. and the reason there is an eerie silence as opposed to other segregation units is becaused inmates are housed behind double sets of doors. this is as close to ahanibl lecter cell unit you can get. they walk out and they have their 45 minutes of recreation.
4:12 pm
each day and then, boom. right become into the cell without ever interacting with another inmate. so it has a very ominous feel when you walk through the special management unit and this is the path that i took when i went to meet shawn gaines. >> 29-year-old shawn gaines had spent most of the last six years in the special management unit. awaiting trial on a first degree murder charge that could land him on death row. >> i lived here longer than i ever lived in one spot in my entire life. even growing up as a kid so it's just -- i've yet to call it home, but it is what it is. >> gaines may not have wanted to call it home, but his security threat ranking dictated it. he was segregated because he was
4:13 pm
once a major player in a violent arizona skinhead movement. >> i was the notorious leader of that skinhead group. my lifestyle was full of hate and violence. >> so with all of that hype, i was expecting shawn gaines to be a very intimidating character, but when i first met him, he wasn't. he looked a little bit more like a benign pudgy teddy bear and he was nice. >> i've taken up drawing. i can't quite say i'm an artist but i like to draw a lot and three times a year i draw a large stack of cards and donate them to a children's hospital. >> but gaines didn't become a leader in the skinheads by being nice. >> i was power hungry. i got caught up in the hype of telling other grown ass men what to do. all the girls flocked to that scene. it's a nonstop party and it's like you can do no wrong. you talk a bunch of [ bleep ]. beat people up. you cause hate and discontent. that's how i made my rise to
4:14 pm
power in the skinhead movement. >> when he took off his shirt, he had some of the most intense nazi skinhead, white power tattoos on that i've ever seen on an inmate. and what's important to understand about the tattoos like that, you don't just get to put those on your body. you have to do what the inmates call earn your rank and he had gotten those tattoos because in his past shawn had done some pretty terrible things. >> first political tattoo i earned was my white pride across my shoulder blades. i got that for smashing a guy and beat him up pretty bad and you can get a plain swastika or a black swastika or what is referred to as a blood swastika which is about as high a level of tattoo as you can get which is what's on my back. >> what do you have to do to get that. >> shed the blood of another race. >> the murder that landed gaines in the maricopa county jail,
4:15 pm
however, was not racially motivated. >> my female co-defendant had problems with her roommate. he had stolen some money from her and had called up a few of her friends, me being one of them and went over to the intimidate the guy. the intention was to have three skinheads in boots on, white power clothing just looking mean and one is carrying a baseball bat and one is carrying a shotgun, 9 other is carrying a knife. i mean that's -- >> what were you carrying. >> i was carrying the shotgun. that's intimidating. >> but it didn't stop at intimidation. within minutes one of the skinheads had beaten the man to death with the baseball bat. >> he was probably dead after the first hit. the first hit was to his head and just -- it was just nasty, vicious, bloody, brutal. >> while gaines admits he was a party to the crime, he claims it was one of his co-defendants who actually killed the victim. he and his lawyer have been fighting to get the charges
4:16 pm
reduced for years now. >> if you're convicted of first degree murder, you'd be eligible for the death penalty. >> i'll get the death penalty. where i carry guilt, i could have stopped it. i could have been more of a man, i could have stepped up and -- [ bleep ] grabbed him, i mean, played the scenario over and over. i mean even one word out of my mouth would have stopped him. and i didn't say [ bleep ]. i stood there and just let him continue to hit that man. >> gaines went on to tell us that he was no longer the skinhead that participated in that or any other heinous act. >> i was a hypocrite, a bigot, a hatemonger. i was just as evil as any one of the rest of these dumb asses around here, so i wasn't always a good person. >> in 2004 while awaiting trial, he not only renounced his gang affiliation, but decided to tell about others. >> i have given up information on other crimes. i've not held back.
4:17 pm
i renounced publicly through doing interviews like this, i've renounced with officers. i mean, to every extent, i've ruined myself. i've made it public knowledge. i made it to where everybody knows, i don't have a chance to go back to that lifestyle. i don't want to go back to that lifestyle. >> in fact, he even works with some organizations to combat racism. >> i'm a source of information of the southern poverty law center to one people's project, the anti-racist action. i've done all i can to change myself as a person and not only to renounce and to become a hermit from that lifestyle but to take an opposition against it. >> but there was a price for coming clean. >> you're basically deemed a snitch so that's why my custody is what it is. if i'm ever put in general population i'm as good as dead. >> any prison gang would be happy to get their hands on shawn gaines. >> it's kill or be killed for me
4:18 pm
now so i'll spend my time to protective custody. more than likely slammed down the entire time. >> while his public confession may have put gaines' life in danger, it also generated some welcome attention from the outside world. >> apparently i'm writing my fiancee. >> you have a fiancee? >> yeah. >> is this someone you knew before you were incarcerated. >> no, i met her since i've been in here. the interview i did with southern poverty law center, she read that and dropped me a couple postcards of encouragement commending the changes i made so we've been pen pals for almost two years now and been together for about the last year. she's beautiful. she's -- good heart, smart, funny, loves me to death. takes good care of me. i couldn't ask for more and not to mention she's willing to stand by me and do the time with me so that's -- i feel pretty blessed. coming up -- >> after the 36 hours they take
4:19 pm
the baby from you and you just have to hand the baby over and you go straight back to prison. >> the harsh reality of being pregnant in prison. this past year alone there was a 93% increase in cyber attacks. in financial transactions... on devices... in social interactions... and applications in the cloud. some companies are worried. some, not so much. thanks to a network that secures it all and knows what to keep in, and what to keep out. outsmart the threats.
4:20 pm
see how at cisco.com cisco. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. to learn more, visit us today. responsibility. what's your policy?
4:21 pm
just don't feel like they used to. are you one of them? remember when you had more energy for 18 holes with your buddies. more passion for the one ya love. more fun with your family and friends. it could be a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. come on, stop living in the shadows. you've got a life to live. [ male announcer ] so don't blame it on aging. talk to your doctor and go to isitlowt.com to find out more.
4:22 pm
when jennifer rose described her worst day at the tennessee prison for women to us, she left no doubt about how bad it really was. >> i was sick. literally sick, physically, emotionally crying, devastated, there's no way to explain it. it's the worst thing i've ever had to go through in my life. >> technically though rose wasn't in prison that day. she was in a nearby hospital giving birth. >> i don't wish it on nobody. it was awful. they treat you pretty much like an inmate. it's no privacy at all and i got to keep the baby in the hospital room with me for 36 hours and after the 36 hours they kind of take the baby from you. that's the hardest part. you just have to hand the baby over and you go straight back to
4:23 pm
prison. then i went through the whole crying spell for like a couple weeks, nothing but crying, crying, crying. >> with we met rose six months later she was serving a four-year sentence for theft and forgery. but had she first got to prison she didn't even know she was pregnant. >> while i was in classification which is where you have to be for 30 days when you first get here i found out i was pregnant. and so i've been here since then through my whole pregnancy. >> one of the saddest things i think we film in "lockup" is the case where a pregnant inmate has to decide what to do with her baby. at tennessee prison for women they have this wonderful and unique program through their chapel where families of the community care for the babies of these inmates until the women were released from prison. >> terry haygood has been raising jennifer's son caden since he was born. >> hi. >> isn't he cute? he's gotten big.
4:24 pm
>> hi. >> that's okay. that's okay. hey, caden, are you going to smile for mommy? there's a smile. smile. >> there's women in the chump that still have the heart for little ones even though my baby is 13 so we enjoy him and he's special and it gives us the time to have a little one around and that kind of thing and get to know jennifer and be an encouragement to her as well. >> terry learned about the prison program from karen rowmore who always felt something for inmates. >> i just felt led to get involved because i just think of somebody in prison alone and, you know. only 10% of the prisoners actually get visitors every week. so that tugged at my heart too. and i just began praying for the person i needed to minister to. it's been a really neat transition just seeing jennifer from one point to now. it's just a totally different person.
4:25 pm
>> watching these two women bring caden into the prison and seeing the love they had for both caden and jennifer was truly inspirational and then terry taking full responsibility for this child knowing she was going to give the child back to jennifer when she got out of prison astounded me. >> they cannot take custody from you without a reason to. and as long as you have somebody to take care of him, you still have full custody. they just have temporary custody. until you're released and then once upon your release from here you'll be given back all custody so that gives me the focus to know i have to do what i have to do to get out of here. to get him back and get my life right. >> what are you doing while you're in prison? how are you spending your days here? >> g.e.d. classes and then hopefully after i get my g.e.d. i start some college classes. my goal is to be a vet tech hopefully within two years i can be in a vet school somewhere. >> it was really sweet to watch
4:26 pm
jennifer with her son caden. the love was very obvious. then i found out that jennifer had four other children that she lost custody of and hadn't seen for three years so it became obvious to me that this was her second chance of actually being a mother and raising her child. >> now he is eating vegetables. >> uh-huh. >> and fruit and a bottle and he goes for his six-month checkup next week and he'll probably get shots. >> oh, no, you gotta get shots, bubba. >> look at momma. you see momma. yes. >> emotionally i have to tell myself that it's just time for bonding with him. but the hardest part is knowing that i have to leave him and come back to the cell. >> hopefully when she gets out and it'll be easier for them to bond again and be connected. >> you know, i just talk to him the whole time and try to look
4:27 pm
in his eyes, keep him looking at me so hopefully my picture will stick in his head. it's hard. i don't get to see like his first time he rolled over, the first time he grabbed at something. that part bothers me, but when i'm with him it's just like i wish time would hold still so i could spend more time with him but i treasure every minute, you know. oh. coming up -- >> what the [ bleep ] this look like? >> one inmate struggles, not only with his anger but his anger management class. >> i took a ten-pound weight and i bust his head.
4:28 pm
oh, we call it the bundler. let's say you need home and auto insurance. you give us your information once, online... [ whirring and beeping ] [ ding! ] and we give you a discount on both. sort of like two in one. how did you guys think of that? it just came to us. what? bundling and saving made easy. now, that's progressive. call or click today. as much as i can about a company before i invest in it. that's why i like fidelity. they give me tools and research i can't get anywhere else. their stock screener lets me search for stocks
4:29 pm
with more than 140 criteria. i can see what their experts are thinking and even call them to bounce an idea off of one of their investment professionals. a good strategy relies on good insight. if you wanted to learn more about a company, i think you'd actually have to be there.
4:30 pm
msnbc now. a lawyer representing the 32-year-old suspect in the norway massacre says his client feels his actions were atrocious but necessary. a massive bombing friday in the heart of oslo was filed by a shooting spree at a youth camp
4:31 pm
in which 93 people were left debt. a major deal appears pob out of reach, but both sides agree, the u.s. must not default. and now, back to lockup. >> due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. in the heart of the deep south, the long, hot days of summer often give rise to fierce thunderstorms. and in places like alabama's maximum security holman correctional facility, they can also lead to violence. >> all right. anybody in here been stressed out by the heat this week? and it has been hot. do y'all know they broke a record in mobile? it was 100 degrees.
4:32 pm
that was 120-year-old record. does anybody agree in here when everybody gets hot everybody gets meaner and madder? >> without a doubt. >> packed into a tiny classroom without air-conditioning leslie dodds leads 18 inmates in an anger management class designed to help them recognize and control their emotions. >> is it possible to stay in prison, have a long sentence and be here for a long period of time and not it get a disciplinary? >> it is possible. all you have to do is obey authority and stuff, right? >> walter says it is. anybody agree or disagree zm >> i disagree. i got 57 disciplinaries. some of them i got was because of the administration because of certain situations happened. just like a case where somebody broke in my box and i stabbed them. you know what i was saying. i wasn't bothering nobody. >> percy bradley jumped out at me immediately when i first met him. he was a very angry guy and he was very vocal about advocating violence.
4:33 pm
>> when i come to prison i was 21 years old. i'm 21 years old maximum security prison. i've been locked up 30 years and he said he liked me in a gay way. if i let him tell me stuff like that, i took a ten-pound weight and bust his head. that's what i'm talking about in situations like that. all he had to do was leave my stuff alone. they broke it once, i let it slide. they broke it again, i couldn't let it slide. i'd keep getting run over. >> i also want to reiterate the point that if it were not possible to do, it would not be done. it is possible because people do it. there are men in here who have been here for 30 years with no disciplinaries. everybody doesn't react to stress with violence. that is a fact. and you may not agree with it, but it is a fact. >> when we met percy bradley, he was serving a 20-year sentence for assault and robbery.
4:34 pm
and had been at the center of numerous conflicts at holman. though his violent behavior had tapered off he had just been assigned to anger management after a disciplinary write-up for arguing with another inmate. >> how many disciplinaries? >> 57. >> how did that happen? >> it's a [ bleep ] jungle. it's a jungle. it's been a jungle my whole 11 years. i'm saying so people say, you can't blame other people for what you do, blame other people for your actions. that's a lie. >> why? >> you got to blame other people. you got to blame other people because you can do the best you can to try to avoid other people and people will do stupid stuff. there's a certain way a person has to live in prison. prison made me the man i am. right now. >> how about your response to those stupid things? >> but it all depends on what they do. >> no, you can never blame other people for your behavior. you don't think there is anything wrong with the way you behave or the way you handle stress and anger?
4:35 pm
you're in the wrong class because you first have to say, yes, i have a problem and stop blaming other people for what you have done. that's a huge problem in here. >> percy obviously believed violence was a necessary tool in prison but the fact was over the last couple years he had a clean record so he was able to move into the honor dorm which is the least restrictive housing unit at holman. >> it's full of inmates trying to change their life and learn different things, but it's all a crock of [ bleep ]. >> tell me why because you seem really unhappy. >> because you got certain guys in here feel like they run the dorm and got certain guys in here feel like that they [ bleep ] you and they got a list of rules but only applies to a certain group of people. >> what are some of the things people have done to provoke you. >> breaking the box.
4:36 pm
disrespect me verbally. bump into me, don't say excuse me. curse at me, any of them -- the least little thing, i'm just that dude, man. i just been that way all my life. you know, anything like that, i'll handle it straight up off the top. any way -- any means necessary i'm gonna handle it straight up. if i stab you or bust your head or something, by my fist, i'm going to handle you straight up. >> let me ask you a question. everything you described to me, disrespects or whatever, you don't think that happens in the free world. >> can i speak freely. >> yes. >> [ bleep ] no. [ bleep ] no. in the free world i ain't got to deal would those dudes because i stand up for what's right and it's got something to do with me and it's nobody he's business. >> you stab somebody that's their business. >> well, they had to do something for me to stab them. >> while bradley may not have been making much progress with the philosophy of anger
4:37 pm
management, the investigation into his latest write-up was moving right along. >> they got me. >> this time it was for getting into a loud argument with another honor dorm inmate. sit down there, percy. let's go over this thing with this write-up you got. >> bradley's write-up including testimony from other honored dorm inmates all of whom agreed that bradley started the confrontation opinion >> they said this is not the first time you've been written up for your anger problems out there too. they got some other things attached here to where you have gotten written up. guy or nothing. i walked off. my fists weren't balled up or nothing. >> they said if you improved they would recommend him to stay, however, they feel like you're not going to stop this behavior and they're not going to last so the bottom line is that the community managers, their recommendation is you be moved out of the dorm.
4:38 pm
so right now today i'm going to agree with them. i'm going to agree with them, all right? you have any other questions? >> no, sir. >> all right. i appreciate you coming up. >> outside the hearing room, bradley was less accepting of the decision. >> that's a [ bleep ] of [ bleep ]. man, that is [ bleep ] up. i'm gonna be leaving here. i ain't going do what you want me to do. i ain't going to say what you say. >> technically my job is to be an observer but there was something about percy every single time i talked to him i got a little tired of hearing this blame game from him so decided to confront him. >> i see a lot of guys in here. i've talked to a lot of guys. everybody has a different path. not everybody walks around angry all the time. you're angry at everybody else,
4:39 pm
percy. you're angry at everybody else. >> that's what you think. i ain't blaming -- no, that's what you think. i ain't be mad at everybody. you got to see some of the [ bleep ] they do around here. what do you expect me to do? what do you expect me to do? >> the following morning it was time for bradley to leave the honor dorm. >> we were filming when the officers awakened percy to escort him out of the honor dorm. >> percy. pack up. >> and our cameraman brian asked percy a question while he was filming him and percy was annoyed and upset and lashed out at brian. >> what did he ask you to do now? >> what the [ bleep ] it look like? i'm moving out the dorm. >> i think the drama of having the officer wake him up and then, you know, us being there with the camera in his face, i think it bothered him and we understand, we don't take it personally. we're in their environment. >> they woke you up.
4:40 pm
>> they woke me up with this [ bleep ] with a bunch of [ bleep ] in here. that is what is going on out here. >> but what was interesting to me was after, you know, we continued to film him, suddenly percy turned to brian and apologized. >> my bad. i snapped on you, man. i just woke up, man. >> what's that? >> my bad if i kind of griped at you, man. i was just waking up. >> i understand. >> it was a little surprising to see him kind of let his guard down and apologize but i was like wait a second. you don't need to apologize. you just do your thing and don't worry about us. >> don't all give my clothes away before i get back. >> that was the first time i could see a flicker of awareness in percy. he actually stopped and realized how he was being perceived by other people. when percy got moved back into the general population dorm, he
4:41 pm
almost acted as though it was his choice but i think he knew it was a demotion and i think he felt bad about it so he had to put on this front for the other guys. >> i've been over here before, it ain't like i been over here. all these [ bleep ] know me. i been in prison 11 years. this is just another part of prison. i'm talking about that i -- red neck, that cracker, man, this is real. this is real. that's what you need to film. that's fake and passive. fruity. >> now that percy got kicked out of the honor dorm he was no longer required to go to anger management classes, so just out of curiosity, i asked him what he was going to do the next day. >> what you mean? >> what's tomorrow? >> [ bleep ]. the same thing that went on out there. i just got to go to anger management. >> you got to what? >> i just got to go to anger management. that's it. >> are you going to go? >> yeah, i'm going because i need it. >> i honestly in my head i
4:42 pm
thought, well, you know, this is going to be kind of a long process. he's going to have to eventually get it but when we ended up back in the anger management class it was like a different person. >> frustration when they get to me, man, i lash out. i act on it. you know what i'm saying but i'm trying to learn by being around certain other guys that turn that stuff toward other directions. you know what i'm saying like boxing and working out and stuff. even -- i'm even starting out where i starting to read more so i'm trying to do the best i can to turn that stuff -- i ain't to the point yet where i'm ready to let go of certain things. >> you know what the first step towards solving the problem is admitting there is a problem and that sort of sounds like what you're doing now. >> i'll use a cliche. i wanna chew up the meat and spit out the bone but i'm so pig-headed and stubborn, i'm going to eat the whole chicken. >> bone and all. >> bone and all. >> one of the hardest things
4:43 pm
about this job is we only get to see a little sliver of these people's lives. we don't often get to see the end of the story and in the case of percy it felt like we were seeing the beginning. coming up -- >> oh, look at you. >> two friends cope with the reality of a premature end to a prison sentence. odnight, stuffy. goodnight, outdated. goodnight old luxury and all of your wares. goodnight bygones everywhere. [ engine turns over ] good morning, illumination. good morning, innovation. good morning unequaled inspiration. [ male announcer ] the audi a8, chosen by car & driver as the best luxury sedan in a recent comparison test.
4:44 pm
4:45 pm
♪ i like your messy hair ♪ i like the clothes you wear ♪ i like the way you sing ♪ and when you dance with me ♪ you always make me smile
4:46 pm
[ male announcer ] we believe you're at your best when you can relax and be yourself. and at thousands of newly refreshed holiday inn express hotels, you always can. holiday inn express. stay you. and now stay rewarded with vacation pay. stay two weekend nights and get a $75 prepaid card. during our many years of filming inside prisons we've seen a lot of life and death conflict. we've seen assaults. we've seen stabbings. it's a very violent world but it certainly happened inside indiana state prison. but there was one story in particular where life and death skon flikt wasn't rooted in violence, was rooted in compassion. and it involved an inmate named
4:47 pm
pizzaman. >> he seen him in the gas station and supermarket. >> i used to work at a pizza place. that's right. you've the pizza man sort of stuck to me. i got the same tattoo on my chest. >> how did it tick in prison. >> everybody knows me and a lot of people from my town plus it was all over the news, my story, my case, you know. >> the reason john pizzaman maxi's face was all over the news was because on halloween night 1996 he murdered his boss inside the pizza parlor where they worked. >> i was mad at my boss and things went bad and he lost. he said i was just -- >> disgruntled. >> oh, boy, exactly. >> maxi was given a 60-year sentence for murder but after meeting him, we realized he wasn't going to serve much more than the ten years he already had. he wasn't getting paroled. but his time was almost up. >> i got soros is of the liver
4:48 pm
and stomach hernia, and they can't give me no treatment. >> why? >> that's what the chief doctor said because if they cut me open the cancer will spread and kill me faster. >> so what does this mean for you? >> a death sentence. >> even with death looming over him, maxi found comfort in the support and camaraderie of his fellow inmates. >> him being around us, i feel like this is what gives him hope. even if he knows he's dying, he knows that there's not much the medical people can do. >> more than anyone else, joseph monigan formed a special bond with maxi. like maxi he's also serving 60 years for murder and when the prison hired him as his caregiver he discovered it was much more than just a job. >> when i care about somebody i care about them hard. i don't just care about them, you know what i'm saying? i really care about him. god answered my prayer and gave me the ability to clean him up
4:49 pm
from his head to his feet. >> by the time we met him, maxi had had a few recent brushes with death. the last time he fell into a coma and was rushed to an outside hospital. >> we was in church and one of the officers came in and was like, pizzaman died. so, you know, we all mourned and, you know we -- it was crazy. we like, man, well, comes to find out that there was a god in the hospital with his name that died, not him. so when he came back, he come back strutting and we like, oh, man. you know. >> i was in better shape. >> we hugging and everything. >> i know that he's not the only person in here that needs to be treated medically but i live with him. this is the guy that i got to take in the shower and make sure he gets bathed properly and make sure he don't pee on the walls,
4:50 pm
you know what i'm saying? it's things that -- like y'all was was to see how big his stomach is. look how swollen his feet are. >> from my kneecaps twice the size as this. >> what's that swelling from? >> poison because it's got to leak down, right, exactly. i take a lot of medications now. >> at one point he revealed the swelling of his ankles and i couldn't comprehend how bad it really was until he showed us and then i really realized what kind of problems this guy really had. >> each day monigan wheels him over to the infilmry for a shot to relieve the pain. >> he would push him and inmates would joke with him because he knew the extent of his swelling in certain areas of his body and they would make up jokes and names for him and he had a great
4:51 pm
attitude about it. he would just laugh right back at them and, you know, act like it was nothing. >> oh, look at you. >> making that dude crash for the first time. >> what's going on? >> i going to my shower. what's up. >> coming up -- >> i woke up in the hospital. >> john maxi takes a turn for the worse.
4:52 pm
an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car is totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. to learn more, visit us today. responsibility. what's your policy? ♪ going to the bank without going to the bank...
4:53 pm
that's a step forward. with chase quickdeposit on your smartphone, you just snap a picture, hit send and done. chase quickdeposit. take a step forward and chase what matters. ♪ we just keep on keepin' on ♪ ♪ keep on
4:54 pm
death isn't sneaking up on john maxi. it warns him every day that it's coming. the swelling, the nausea, the chronic pain, all reminders that his 60-year sentence at indiana state prison is coming to a
4:55 pm
premature end. >> i fail fell into a light coma friday afternoon. i don't remember, you know, i woke up in the hospital. >> maxi recovered in the hospital and was sent back to prison. but the latest scare prompted some changes. >> this is some paperwork i signed for them to take off of dying like to give me cpr if i lose it again because before i told them i didn't want them to do that. >> you told them do not resuscitate you if yeah, but now i had changed at the hospital, on the street and in there. >> his change of heart regarding his do not resuscitate was influenced by his best friend and caregiver, joseph. >> i told him i wasn't going to take care of him if they wasn't going to resuscitate him. he had to sign legal documents
4:56 pm
if i'm going to take care of him he has to take care of himself too because i care about him. that's my brother. you don't see the resemblance? >> i think maxi gave monigan a reason to be. a reason to get up every morning and i think that monigan gave maxi a reason to continue living. >> his best hope of survival would be a liver transplant but that was unlikely. >> it's a complicated situation. there is some concern about the continuity of a transplant program if people find out, well, you're going to give my liver to a criminal, some people would be upset about that and so there's that legitimate concern about the appropriateness of that happening in this kind of population. >> with little hope of a transplant, most of maxi's care was focused on keeping him comfortable and alert.
4:57 pm
>> every day i think it was a question mark about maxi and his health and then we had arrived one day and there was an ambulance out front and it was actually blocking our entrance into parking, into the parking lot and we found out that maxi was inside the ambulance, so once we got in to see monigan he told us he had had an event during the night and he was being rushed to the hospital. >> what was the last communication you had. >> he told me he loved me. >> what did you say? >> i love him too. and if he die i'm going to [ bleep ] him up. he start laughing and he said, okay. he's telling me i'm embarrassing him in front of the ladies because the nurses is around so, you know -- >> straight up. >> you know, any time somebody can laugh in that much pain, man, that make me feel good. that's the type of relationship we got. >> from what he told us maxi became disoriented. he said usually that meant one thing and that was he was
4:58 pm
probably most likely going to be in a coma soon. >> he was laying right here like he was in his bunk so i got him up and he lay back in his bunk then he covered up. then he got out of his bunk and went to the restroom, came back and instead of laying back down in his bunk he sat on the floor, from his wheelchair. so when i woke up i see him sitting on the floor and i turn to him. it's the floor. he think he's sitting in the wheelchair. then i realized that he done ran out of gas. ain't to getting back to the bunk. so i take him to the hospital. bam. and i just hope he's all right. >> it was obvious he had grave concerns for his friend and i think the general sentiment at the time was maxi was not going to be coming back from the hospital.
4:59 pm
>> i ain't got nobody to laugh and joke and kick it with right now. because we could be watching tv and we'd be interacting. and they don't just be me, it be other people that would be around and it would be people that love him maybe talking to him and be making sure his spirits stay high so that was all. everybody just tried to take care of each other, man, i mean it's hard -- >> do you think you'll see pizza man again? >> i don't -- nope, nope. >> we finished our shoot shortly after we did that last interview with monigan and found out a few weeks later that maxi never returned to the prison. he passed away and monigan never got to say good-bye to him.

94 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on