the life sentence, i couldn't be happier. it was -- boom, boom, boom, boom. >> putting video and audio in a living and breathing drug house and handing the keys over to the gang when you wanted to turn them over, that had never been done before. >> look, big shots. i got 30 shots. >> it's 24 hours a day. and you actually see 24 hours a day of what these people are doing and how they live and how they operate their business in amongst their personal lives. >> he's gonna swallow all this.

>> i asked my husband at least four or five times, "what did he say? did he say 42 years? did he say 42 years?" >> bup, bup, bup, bup. [ gunshots ] between about 2001 up through 2005, there was a growing presence of hardened chicago gang members that were coming out to rockford and taking over the drug business.

word began to spread about this guy named duck and members of the titanic stones. >> we kept hearing this name, duck. that he was from chicago. that he was putting out a lot of dope here in rockford. he was just a young guy, but he had a real reputation. people were afraid of him, just a little guy. the talk in the street informant information was that this group run by duck, titanic stones, were trying to take over the drug trade in rockford. and they were moving real strong. >> when they arrived here in rockford, there was definitely a power struggle. chicago versus rockford. we'd have our robberies, our shootings. there had been murders here. >> every so often, somebody comes into power. it's just like anything else in life, you know. any business or any -- you know, something always rises to the top. >> it was an epidemic.

it's basically what it was. >> they were shooting a lot of people. >> random gunfire was taking place, a lot of it directed to housing developments in the city. we were having multiple shots fired during these shootings. there was one particular incident that took place on underwood street on a saturday afternoon. >> there was a running gun battle in the middle of the street. there were 60 rounds exchanged. there were 60 casings in the street. and it was a miracle that nobody was killed. i mean, there were children out playing. the rounds were flying. and everything went back to duck. >> now we're coming up on central. we're still on the west side of town here in rockford. we're going to go by the auburn street mcdonald's where julio allen, a member of an opposite gang here in rockford, was confronted by davis bradford dodson. >> bradford dodson, who had the

nickname of hustler, played the roll of enforcer. at duck's orders, at the mcdonald's restaurant at auburn and central, tried to carry out a hit in retaliation for a home invasion at one of the gang's drug houses. they found out julio allen was there. davis gave the order, and bradford dodson fired several rounds through a plate glass window. >> when you've got someone firing rounds inside a mcdonald's like that, that's unacceptable. that's when i said, "i want this duck. this guy has got to go down." we initiated a federal case. did an awful lot of surveillance, following people, watching people talking to informants. we started to see the pattern. the way they were selling the narcotics was the same. >> he was using different locations in the city, renting houses. normally he would have a lady rent the house in her name. nobody would live there. they would just use it strictly

to sell drugs. >> the rockford police department had executed search warrants at many of these houses and only gotten small quantities of crack cocaine or heroin. almost always heroin. and he was never there. he wasn't the one selling it. we were lucky enough to have a confidential informant who was providing us with a wealth of information. and told us that she had been approached and asked if she would be interested in renting a house on behalf of duck and the titanic stones. >> i was selling crack. i was selling dime bags, $20s, 8-balls. i mean, i was good at it. i'm not gonna sit there and say i wasn't good at it. i just slipped up one time 'cause i was drunk. i was messed up and forgot to take it out and went to jail, and they found it in the jailhouse. duck looks like the coolest

person. i'm talking about, like, the coolest person, he's the scariest person. if you get to know him and see how he really is, he's the most dangerous man, period, i've ever seen in my life. because he's really dangerous. he had more power than scar face. that man was big, big. they would have killed me if they had found out. they would kill me. i'd be dead. it's a chance i had to take. congratulations. congratulations. congratulations. today, the city of charlotte can use verizon technology to inspire businesses to conserve energy and monitor costs. making communities greener... congratulations. ... and buildings as valuable to the bottom line... whoa !

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♪ summer's coming on now. >> yeah. going to get hot, going to get busy. >> don't have any time off because i have to bail all that hay. >> still have to protect the street too. >> yeah. >> beginning of the case, i was working in the narcotics unit and my brother was in the gang unit.

we were working both angles of it. barry came to me one day and said, i've got an idea. do you think this will work? >> he told me he had an informant who had a house that would be used for a drug house. they wanted to wire the house up with video and audio. i said yeah, i think we can make that happen. >> this is where the house was. the house was donated to us. it was scheduled for demolition. it was pretty much disgusting when we got it but they were kind enough to let us do whatever we wanted to do. we parked in this driveway. we carried lots of carpeting and junk inside. >> we chose a location because at the time the targets that we are looking at were looking for an eastside spot. this is near the east side of town in rockford. they were looking for a spot

that had alleys that was hidden from the general traffic but could be accessible to somebody that would want to get in and get out. >> it was boarded up. every window, every door was boarded up. inside the carpet was rotten. the flooring was a mess. all the utilities were not functioning. we would come over in our undercover vehicles. we would paint, do electrical work, plumbing, totally redo the house but we added things to it. video and audio. >> talking to the technical people, we determined in order to do what we wanted to do we would have to hard wire the house to a listening post. by hard wire we needed a cable run directly from that house to

wherever we set up a command post/listening post. fortunately we within in the room talking and the sergeant from community relations heard the problem and said, i've got just the spot for you. went out and looked at it. it was perfect. >> factory or command center was an old model payment factory from the third or fourth floor, wherever we were, we had a bird's-eye view of the house looking north and the command center was set up so there was a monitoring room where you would have three agents at three separate monitoring stations and then a supervisor in the room. and each of those stations monitored a particular room in the house at 1023 kishwaki. one for the kitchen, one for the

dining room, one for the living room. nobody could guarantee that the titanic stones wouldn't say that we're not interested any more or that they would think that somebody was up. there were tense days leading up to august 9. >> when i took duck to show him that house, he loved it. he fell in love with it. he said call that landlord right now and tell him you want it. it's low key. it's off of the back of the alley. it is easy for people to come in from the alley and nobody can see them. he wanted it. we didn't use the front door and he wanted it. he was like, tell them, yeah, sold. i called and said duck wants it. he said he liked it? i said he loved it.

>> on august 9, it worked out. within a very short period of time, a couple of hours, the keys were turned over and within an almost identical short period of time, they're moving in. ♪ ♪ ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there ♪ ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that ♪ hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, ♪

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it is really an underclass and subculture that most people really never see. >> i remember a phone call that i received from barry cunningham when i wasn't in the monitoring room. and his words were, "we're in the hornet's nest here." >> i was here from about 5:00 in the morning every morning until 2:00 every night.

it was miserable, hot every day. everybody was complaining to me. i was the guy supposed to be handling the gear and i couldn't keep it cool enough. it was a learning experience i think for everybody there. this was the first time you actually saw what happened in a drug house. they were just living like regular people live. watching tv, playing video games, visiting with their friends. the normal life was interrupted by selling drugs, playing with guns and counting money. >> if there is not criminal activity going on then the court order says you have to turn off the recording devices. most often everything going on in that house was criminal in nature because there was almost always drugs around or a gun in the room or they were convicted felons.

everything was criminal in nature. >> it was a simple operation. whoever was in the house at this time, people would come to the door, they knew the majority of the people coming to the door because of the fact that they were dealing with them on a regular basis. they would lay around all day long on the couch waiting for somebody to knock on the door so they could sell dope to them.

>> this group was associated with so much violence. once the microphones were turned on and the cameras were turned on, there was relief that it was working, the tension didn't necessarily subside because it became very obvious to us that this game was for real. and the reputation that preceded them was one that was appropriate.

>> the last thing in the world we wanted to do was bring violence to a neighborhood. we set this house up. so, you know, god forbid we brought violence into the neighborhood and somebody got hurt. we were always concerned about that. that that was something that we had to keep in mind that we couldn't let it get out of control. >> every evening it would hit the fan.

it would hit the fap and several times that would jump up and say, let's go shoot so and so. we would be like okay, we got to stop this. usually they would smoke dope and forget about it. we never had to do anything but nevertheless it was every night. it would be a laugh. wait for the 7:00 catastrophe every night.

>> he just hit my hand three times with a hammer. it don't take that much to break no hands with a hammer. in peac. but you go in pieces. [ female announcer ] you can't pass mom's inspection with lots of pieces left behind. that's why there's charmin ultra strong. its diamondweave texture is soft and more durable so it holds up better. fewer pieces left behind. charmin ultra strong. a vacation on a budget with expedia. make it work. booking a flight by itself is an uh-oh. see if we can "stitch" together a better deal.

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msnbc now. i'm alex witt. after almost two years of arguing, nba players and owners have reached a tentative deal. they hope to kick off the season on christmas day with the celtics and knicks. and one retail group estimates sales increased 10% to 14%

across the country. online spending was up 20% higher than last year, and monday is cyber monday. more news later. now back to msnbc undercover. putting video and audio in a living and breathing drug house and turning the keys over to the gang when you wanted to turn them over, that had never been done before. >> it's 24 hours a day and you see how they live and how they operate their business in and among their personal lives.

>> bradford was an enforcer, just a brooding hard case. the shooting at mcdonald's where he did shoot julio during the dinner time incident it was just brazen. >> from the beginning when i first joined the gang i was being somebody that i wasn't. i wasn't being bradford dodson. i was being the hustler, the one they wanted me to be. they didn't like bradford dodson. they liked the hustler. so for all them years, i was being a hustler.

i wasn't being bradford dodson. >> my child did not have negligent parents. he wasn't hungry. didn't miss a day's meal. was not homeless. i wasn't a crackhead. dad wasn't a crackhead. wasn't abusive, none of that. none of the things that society say the reason that these children do what they do. they do it because they want to and they do it because someone has enticed them. the drug dealers come through and they see easy gullible young people and they offer them -- it's exciting. you know? the rims, the car. i am angry at him for not -- i'm

actually angry at him for allowing someone to sell him a dream of nothing. and i believe that's what it was. >> i met bradford when my daughter was picking me up from work and she introduced me to the guy in the car. this is my boyfriend. i didn't pay him any attention. first time i really, really other than seeing him in the car remember being around brad was i went over one day and one of their friends says martha, i think you need to know, jennifer's pregnant. after that day, brad and i became really close because i punched him. and after that i started taking him to church with me and i grew to love him and he was just my boy.

>> i first met doug in 1996, '97. when our gang was in war with they gang. they gang was from like 53 and harper and we from 52nd and drexler. doug used to come down and he would shoot at us and it was like concrete jumping off the ground hitting the cars. because our two gangs was into it. that's the first time i even heard his name or knew about him. >> it didn't hurt so much for me

as i did for brandon. he has uncles and grandfathers and cousins and what not that could help raise him but it's nothing like a dad. he was very young and having, you know, that's all he know about his dad is in and out of jail. >> what's up? >> brandon, that you? >> yeah. >> happy birthday, man. >> thank you. >> 8 years old. getting big. don't spend all your time sitting in the room playing video games. go outside and play and go to school and just be good. >> okay. >> i wish i was outside playing right now, running around.

>> the severity of the situation never hit me until i get a call at the hospital from across town that he had been mugged. and i'm thinking, how did that happen? they said we're taking him to surgery. we'll call you when it's over. 9:00 the next morning, they called me that he was finally out of surgery and i talked to the doctor because i had worked at that hospital before. and he told me that somebody had mashed brad's hands. he said it's the worst case he had ever seen. it took him seven hours to put the hand back together. the handed -- mashed flat. the fingers were split and the flesh was coming through all the bones down to the wrists just mashed like hamburger. >> if you look at the video

footage, you see bandages on both of bradford dodson's hands throughout that time period. that is from daryl duck davis. what happened was they suspected -- duck suspected bradford of snitching on the game or of stealing money. something that went against duck and the organization. so duck gathered up the gang members. he had joel turner hold a gun to bradford dodson's head. he was made to spread eagle on the floor. all of his clothes off and duck took a hammer and he broke both of bradford dodson's hands. >> he just hit my hands three times. it don't take that much to break hands with a hammer. he hit my hands three times. i told him i did steal the guns, though.

i needed cash quick because i wasn't trying to be around like that, man. i stayed around because he made me come around. when i got out the hospital he immediately came and got me from my baby mother's house. i'm going to tell the truth, i was scared. i didn't want to die. smal

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duck in the video footage came across as somebody who is always in control. when he walked in, anybody who was in the house sort of looked up and duck was there for one reason, which was to deliver drugs, and to pick up the money, most importantly. >> duck was in charge. nobody else knew who duck knew. duck had the contacts in chicago. when he made a transition in chicago, no one was allowed to be with him. they would have to wait in the car. he kept that confidential. that was his ace in the hole with these guys. he knew one of them would go out and try to make a contact with them otherwise.

>> when he needed to re-up, or get more crack cocaine, he went into the city. duck never drove himself. most often his driver was somebody who was in his tight inner circle. somebody he trusted. it was a car that was in somebody else's name. a big, black suv. we later found out had a hidden compartment. but he went in and picked it up, brought it back to rockford

where he stored it at his girlfriend's house, away from where he slept or did his business. >> any time one of the drug houses that was being operated was out of drugs, whoever was working would use the nextel phones and inform him that they needed more product. and then you would see duck driven over in the escalade go over to the chestnut street house, pick up a pack, drop it off, pick up the money and then take off.

>> it was interesting and disturbing at the same time what the customer base was. there were people from all walks of life. bheem looked like they had just gotten off work and stopped at the drug house to get their fix. people who were clearly on their way to becoming addicts. young people, teenagers, people from all walks of life. >> you know, many times your victims are not the best

citizens themselves. but they're still a victim. how did they get to this point? they are taking their life in their hands to go a neighborhood they know nothing about to walk into a house they know nothing about. there is guys in here with guns to purchase a little bag of powder. what went so wrong in their lives to put them to that point. and this is a small part of a huge picture. how big is this drug problem throughout the world? it's -- it's beyond explanation. it's huge. >> i had a easy life.

i had -- my parents did the best they could with what they had. i had -- i have wonderful loving parents. and although my home was semi dysfunctional, my parents did everyone in their power to make sure i didn't use drugs. had i not used would he had not sold drugs? i can't say that for sure. he had a huge influence from his father and he wanted to be just like daddy. and daddy was a dope dealer. he had no respect for me. i was addicted to cocaine. he had no respect for me. but his father, on the other hand, that's who he respected.

i thought i was going to die with that pipe in my hand. i really did. but i can sit here with confidence and say i will never use cocaine again in my life. cocaine is no longer part of who i am. hasn't been for a long time. i botched up motherhood. i botched it. i did. look what my son is. i remember very clearly. i had been in my addiction maybe seven or eight years and daryl said to me, ma, i know what you doing. and if you do down, i'm going to go crashing down with you. i didn't hear him. he was crying out to me then.

i didn't hear him. i couldn't hear him. because i was so deep in my addiction i could not hear him. i wish i had heard him. i wish that i had a heard him. mine was earned over the south pacific in 1943.

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>> the investigation lasted approximately six weeks. to get six weeks out of it was more than we could have hoped for. doc and a number of members of the organization drove to chicago to obtain more heroin. they were under surveillance in the chicago area when they became targets of a drive-by shooting. suddenly out of nowhere a second vehicle pulled up alongside doc and an individual started shooting.

♪ >> the agents in chicago had to immediately take action which required them to pursue the vehicle that the shots had come out of. ♪ ♪ doc could see these cars suddenly come from nowhere and put it all together right then and there. he knew he was under surveillance and he suspected other things might be wrong back in rockford. he then placed a call that we intercepted in a dope house in which he'd warned the individuals there that he thought he was being followed by federal investigators and they should get out of the house immediately. ♪ ♪ they scrambled back to rockford in the suv. in dark, we later learned, in a taxi that was when the jig was

up, so to speak and it was time for us to start making arrest which is is what we did on september 14th. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> the leader of this con pir see, darryl davis received a 42-year sentence and that trickled down to the other members of the conspiracy and

bradford dodson. mcswain received 25-year sentence. 42 years for doc davis is a life sentence. he is going to be an old man when he gets out. when a group like titanic stones get to the point when they're that organized and are terrorizing the streets you're left with no choice. law enforcement is left with no choice, but to take them off. he was simply too dangerous and ordered too many violent acts to leave out on the street. >> every day that the phone would ring or i would hear the siren i thought, okay, someone's going to tell me come identify your son. because that was definitely the path that he was going down. i could have been a better parent. i know i'm a better person. i've proven that i'm a better person than that, but

unfortunately my son doesn't know me in my present state and that hurts me. >> come on, it's raining. >> my grandchildren, they're sweethearts. no, get in the back. get in the back! >> darryl is 6 and dashaun te is 7. wonderful, wonderful seven. >> can you give us a dollar because we don't got that much money! >> they don't know the nach are of what has happened. they just know that dad's in jail and when is he getting out? >> darryl, go sit down. yes. i want to sit here. you sit over there, please. >> i want french fries. >> you want some french fries? okay. >> yeah. it's a joy having them. it's an absolute joy. i'm getting a second chance at

this. go to the front and say, excuse me, can i please have some barbecue sauce. can you do that? i didn't can you. i told her. you want another hamburger? ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hey! >> what are you doing? how have you been? how was your trip in? good, good, good. granny missed you. okay. let's go. ♪ ♪ >> don't crack your knuckles. you see how big this part of his hand is? when you go visit him, when we go visit him this summer look at this part of his hand. he got lumps sitting on his hands. and his hands been through a

lot. you can't get off the phone like i do when your daddy calls? i hate getting off the phone with him. >> do he call you a lot? >> he do. he calls me at least three times a month. >> he don't call us a lot. he calls brandy's house. >> i think we should write a letter to the prison and tell them we want more time. they're going to say we can't give him any more time on the telephone. here, you all just take him. wouldn't that be nice? that would be nice. >> yeah. he only got 30 years left, granny? >> maybe so.

♪ ♪ >> i'm not mad at the judge and prosecutors. they got to do their jobs. the gavel was hit, you know? the signature was signed. the jury brought its verdict and it was over with and he sentenced me according to the sentencing guidelines and gave me what he gave me, and if 30 years is what it took for me to not harm myself, then all is well. i'm not being a real good example to brandy, you what i'm saying? if he look up to me i just hope he don't make the same mistakes that i did and put himself in jeopardy to be away from his children. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> in my longest daydreams, somehow or another he'll get out of jail, like -- like that and nobody has grown old, you know? and it could be next year or next month and we pick right up.

he don't want to know nothing about it. he's not interested in the lifestyle, and i'm not going to say he doesn't want to go somewhere and get him a cottage with a white picket fence, but he's not involved in this, you know? but that's in my longest daydreams. >> from our tannstandpoint, the are dangerous guys. we wanted them off the street and we wanted them to go away for the rest of their lives. they put aside what they did, their son, their brother, they loved them no matter what they did. i think sometimes it's not only tragic, but sometimes it's a relief for them because they know what they're doing. their son, their brother or whoever they might be. they know they're in rockford