tv Lockup MSNBC September 6, 2013 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT
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i asked my husband to pay our bill, and he forgot. you have the it card and it's your first time missing a payment, so there's no late fee. really? yep! so is your husband off the hook? no. he went out for milk last week and came back with a puppy. hold it. hold it. hold it. at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. get the it card with late payment forgiveness. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. he was down here with a noose around his neck. >> a gang member makes a desperate cry for help. >> i just need somebody to talk to. >> there's currently only four inmates that are housed in this pod which normally houses 32 inmates. >> completely isolated from other inmates, maricopa's four
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most dangerous women form a notorious sisterhood. rude dude with an attitude. that's what they call me. >> i may look sweet and innocent, but when it comes down to it, i can be tough if i have to be. >> if one of them would cross each other, i'm sure they'd turn on each other. there's nothing in jail that's that thick. i don't even think family is that thick in jail. ♪ located on the top floor of maricopa county's 4th avenue
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jail facility are the highest security male housing units. >> these are the worst in maricopa county. get them out of gp and stuff downstairs. those are the shock collars down there. so you get them out of there, stuff calms down for a while. >> these inmates have either committed violent attacks in the jail or have been identified as violent gang members. like all at maricopa, some are awaiting trial while others have been convicted and are appealing their verdicts or sentences. they are isolated in very stark cells, 23 hours a day and get one hour of rec time in an empty concrete room with a skylight located right next door to their cells. >> our rec pen is the same size as our cell. so you're basically going from one cell to another to walk in circles. it's life in solitary confinement. no cellmates, no card games, no
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pinochle, no chess, but that's life. >> without the distraction of television, radio or cellmates, even the most hardened criminals can break under the pressure. >> every 25 minutes we do our walks to check on inmates to make sure the inmates are safe. they're a greater risk to themselves than anything else. they're isolated. so thoughts get into their heads at times, that they receive bad conversation from home or something like that. it can be despaired. >> [ bleep ]. i didn't do nothing, man. [ bleep ] making me want to kill myself. [ bleep ]. they don't understand. i got to talk, i got to scream. i'm [ bleep ] losing my mind. >> 25-year-old manuel martinez, a self-proclaimed gang member
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currently being held on forgery charges has reached the end of his rope. >> during one of our routine security walks, officers noticed he was attempting to hang himself. pulled him out, put him in the tank back here. so the next step in the process, move to psych, stay there for evaluation and probably end up coming back. >> you have to watch out for it. sometimes it can be a setup. they want you to come in and they're ready to take an officer out. >> come here. step out. to your left. left foot up, right foot up, either one. he was down here on all fours with a noose around his neck saying, you know, he was crying, crying, crying for his girlfriend is what it was. and as soon as we started to open the door and came in, he got up and flushed the noose in there. >> i need somebody to talk to. >> he seemed fine throughout the day.
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no inclination whatsoever that he had problems. it was just like that, he was down. >> it wasn't so much hanging as strangulation. that's an attempt. it's really hard for them to hang because there is no place for them to swing from. they more or less strangle themselves. >> martinez will be placed on suicide watch and moved to a padded safe cell where he will be held pending an evaluation from the jail's psychiatric staff. >> all the way up. face the far door. relax, all right. >> i can't breathe. i can't breathe. >> come on, man, just relax. relax. we got you. >> just relax, martinez. >> staff suspect martinez's breakdown is due in part to
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fiancee. >> he was just saying her name over and over again. if you look in on his cell, he's written her name all over the place. it's written on the sides there, michelle, michelle, michelle. so that's common. you see that a lot when they miss their girls, their wives back home. >> but in martinez's case, these expressions of love take on a considerably more desperate tone. >> get him down here now, there's a less chance he'd hurt himself by slamming his head on the walls which he was doing upstairs. he'll settle down a little bit but for now we'll leave him be. check on him and see if he's all right. >> martinez, cuff comes off, put your hand inside. same with this one. i need you to hand me your boxer shorts there. >> except for padded walls, the safe cell is even more austere
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than his high security cell. >> we take everything away from them. anything they can use to hurt themselves, we take it away. we leave them with a suicide blanket. basically, it would be a lot more difficult to use that to hurt themselves than any other normal things they would have. >> while the safe cell is meant to protect martinez from himself, four of the most dangerous women of maricopa have been isolated in the special pod of high security cells known as atom 100 to protect staff and other inmates from them. >> there's currently only four inmates that are housed in this pod, which normally houses 32 inmates. >> prior to entering the pod, maricopa county detention officers made sure we were aware of security protocols, including the evacuation plan.
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>> while we're in there, there will be two officers present and myself also. i will be there with my taser drawn, and basically we're going to keep the door to our back so if there's any problems the cameraman will have to fall back. the two staff and myself will basically form an arc to protect the camera crew and we'll do a tactical retreat out of the pod and secure the door. >> these women do not get this classification because they went to bible study. these are women that have caused some serious crimes. i sometimes think people don't take female offenders as serious as they do the males. but these women tend to run things. and they can manipulate everybody. >> angela simpson is one of the four women assigned to atom 100. >> simpson, i think, is very scary individual. she's probably the only one in there that i take every
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precaution in the world to make sure my staff and myself are safe. >> i heard they said i was possessed by the devil. that's hilarious. isn't that beautiful? i told my kids when they were babies they saw a guy [ bleep ] behind a circle k. i told them that's how cops grow. so, yeah. i didn't know they would next week go [ bleep ] in the alley and try to grow a cop. that was not my intention. >> she seems to have a true gang type mentality. snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches. no cop is a good cop. she'll stare you down and the hair on the back of your neck standing up. >> i've asked god a lot to spontaneously combust officers. just to watch them pop. >> where does that come from? >> where does that come from? >> your hatred of cops. >> that's not something i'll
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discuss. >> but simpson regularly illustrates her hatred of law enforcement officers through her drawings. >> here's one for my brother. i've got to send that to him. it's from the pigs in a blanket series. don't you love the pigs in a blanket? it's just so cute, isn't it? >> angela, you must see that it makes things contentious with the officer. >> of course not. >> it's not exactly conducive to a good rapport between you and the officers. >> i think it is. we know what we are. they know what they are. what's the -- you know, there's no problem. >> you don't think that that's slightly insulting to them or slightly threatening? >> no. can i show you one that is? maybe it could be threatening, but i didn't mean it that way. this was my first officer down picture. that could be rude, you know. but not really. illustrations, i might make a kids book or something for the baby gangsters coming up.
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>> simpson could face the death penalty for first-degree murder and kidnapping after allegedly torturing a man she believed to be a police informant. >> anything i can do to help put a snitch down is my pleasure. >> so it was your pleasure when you committed this murder? >> see that's kind of [ bleep ] up, i don't know what my lawyer would say if i answered that straight out -- hold on, yes, yes it was. but yeah. >> the charred, dismembered remains of the victim who authorities state was not an informant were discovered inside a trash can. he was stabbed 50 times and showed other signs of torture. though simpson has entered a not guilty plea in court, she openly describes some of her actions to us. >> ripped his teeth out. that's my favorite. >> how'd you do that? >> with some needlenose pliers. kind of ripped. you know. >> what made you think of that? >> what made me think of it? >> to do that. >> prior tooth pain.
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pretty agonizing. i thought maybe i could distribute that. yeah. >> the victim also had a three-inch nail driven into his head. >> she is the one in this whole jail that creeps me out for a better word, you know? she just -- you just don't know what she's going to do. >> thank you, ms. simpson. coming up, the unofficial leader of the atom 100 pod speaks out. >> they swear up and down that i like run the show or something like that. >> and later, the nation's only female chain gang takes on a solemn task. ♪
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adam 100. >> these particular closed custody inmates are very special management. they're in this pod segregated for a reason. you've always got to stay on your toes when you're around them. >> the final factor in the unprecedented decision to isolate four women in a unit large enough for 32 came after one of them viciously attacked another inmate. the attacker was cynthia apkaw. >> apkaw is extremely violent. she severely assaulted that inmate to the point she needed facial reconstructive surgery. >> wow. >> so that's why we do what we do now, for the precautions of these people. >> she disrespected me so i beat the crap out of her. i went out there and i beat her ass in the cell and i pulled her out. dragged her in the middle of the hall and started beating the [ bleep ] out of her. told her she wants to talk with
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me, so i stomped on her face and beat her head in the floor. >> i don't think you can ever prepare yourself for everything. for something that brutal, we've had fights before, but that one probably is real close to the top. it was very violent. and the young lady in question that was injured looked to be passed out with the last few kicks and she could not defend herself. so it was very bad. >> we're going to check the lock, apkaw. >> because apkaw got to her victim with blocking her lock with magazine pages, detention officers follow a strict protocol before entering her cell. first they cuff her up, then instruct her to lie down on her bed. >> go down and lie down on your bunk face-first. >> only then do they enter the cell and conduct a thorough inspection to make sure nothing is blocking the lock. >> here, if you want to go ahead and feel, you'll see what i'm looking for. what you're feeling in there now is fire retardant material. >> yes. >> and just checking up here. and then i'm making sure the lock is still in working order, and it is. so i'm going to close it.
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>> apkaw is facing up to a 15-year prison sentence on charges of aggravated assault after allegedly stabbing her boyfriend. >> i had a rough childhood. i mean, that's all i could say. i dad passed away when i was younger. he was in prison most of the time. i had to take care of my brothers and sisters, and i had to grow up fast. i didn't have a childhood. i wasn't there to carry around a little purse. i didn't have a little cinderella crown on me. i had to grow up, feed my family and do what i had to do because my mom wasn't taking care of her responsibilities. so i had to do what i had to do. >> the girl you got in a fight with, what happened? >> she was making comments about raping kids and just sick comments. just making comments about kids. about just disgusting stuff. she started calling us all racist names in the pod. she was snitching to the cops and lying at the same time right in front of me. i just had it. >> while apkaw gave us an
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assortment of reasons for the attack, jail officials think she left out the real one. >> other inmates greatly influence her. she wants to be other people's puppet. i'm pretty sure i know whose puppet she is in that particular housing unit that she's located at. >> it is believed apkaw attacked her victim to impress another inmate, rosalva "rosy" trevino. >> she drug the inmate to the front of trevino's cell and then assaulted her there. so our thought is possibly that maybe it was done on trevino's order. >> they swear up and down that i run the show or something like that. and it's nothing like that, you know? >> she has a lot of clout. i'm not exactly sure how she continues to keep this high level of clout since she's been here so long. the basic thought is she will not ever leave a facility due to her charges. >> rude dude with the attitude.
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that's what they call me, the officers. >> trevino has been here more at maricopa for more than six years due to the complexities and ongoing delays in her murder case. if she is convicted she will transfer to a maximum security state prison. >> she seems to just have some pull over the inmates and they tend to do for her whatever she says. >> trevino now joins apkaw and angela simpson as three of the four women assigned to adam 100. >> i'm with my peoples here. it's cool. it's quiet. i'm with my family. they went through mad extremes to separate us, and now we're all together again. >> the fourth member of adam 100 is norma lopez. >> her crime's fantastic. well, she didn't do it. she was just there. but, yeah. .45 straight in the face of a cop. [ male announcer ] susan writes children's books.
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i just need somebody to talk to. they don't understand. i've got problems on the street. >> one week after what staff described as a suicide attempt, maricopa county inmate manuel martinez has undergone a psychological evaluation and has been transferred from a padded safe cell back to his own cell in the high-security unit. >> you were having a rough day that day, right? >> yeah, real rough. >> what was going on, your girl? >> yeah, just family problems. i was trying to get a call in and they weren't hearing me and i was just trying to basically let them know i was going through some things if i could talk to a counselor to get me a five-minute call. i don't even have to have five minutes. just get me a couple of minutes. they weren't hearing me. >> martinez's anguish was so intense he took to expressing it on his cell wall. he says he believed his former gang was about to harm his
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fiance and he was desperate to warn her. >> the gang squad went and they did a sweep on my neighborhood, on my gang on the streets. and because i'm in jail, they think i cut me a deal to turn in a couple of my homies on the streets so i could get out. basically they made some threats toward my girl like, because everybody knew where my old lady lived at. >> the next day, martinez was allowed to contact his fiance before anything happened. but he says the experience only deepened his resolve to give up gang life. >> my whole life i've been doing this. i've been in and out of jail since i was 10. the lockest i ever stayed on the streets is three months. i know anybody who's anybody on the streets. not one of them put money on my books. not one of them sent me a postcard, come and visit me, or call my old lady when she is struggling and ask her if she needs gas money or hey, if manuel is doing all right. none of them do that, you know
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what i mean? it's overrated, straight up. it's very overrated. everybody is afraid of the last part of their name, mafia. the mexican part, once you say mafia, everybody shivers. ooh. i don't give a [ bleep ]. they don't pay my bills. know what i'm saying? straight up. they don't do nothing for me. all they've ever done is hurt me. >> while martinez's denunciation of his gang might cast him as a loner, norma lopez has just joined a notorious sisterhood, she's the newest member of the adam up with hundred pod. a secluded housing unit for four of the most dangerous women in the entire maricopa county jail system. >> i may look all sweet and innocent and stuff, but when it comes down to it, i can be tough, if i have to be.
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>> lopez was placed in adam 100 after a violent assault on another inmate. >> i don't think i've ever really lost a fight, like lost, like where i can say oh, yeah, oh, she got me, you know? >> she's also considered a high-security risk to staff. because her alleged crime involved the shooting death of a phoenix police officer, attempting to arrest her and her boyfriend. >> it was a check cashing scheme gone bad. >> lopez is alleged to have distracted the officer, giving her boyfriend the opportunity to shoot him. >> in the state of arizona if you're committing a felony when a murder happens, you get charged with it too. >> the murder hit close to home for maricopa county staff because the victim was a former detention officer here. >> he was more than an officer, for me, and for a lot of people. he was a good friend. a very, very good friend. young, you know, he had young kids. he had a lot of friends here. there's anger there. you know? i don't like her. but i don't hate her.
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she's an inmate, i'm an officer, and i'm going to be professional in my duties here. i'm not going to treat her any differently than i would any other inmate. but i would prefer not to work with her. because in my opinion she just has no remorse of what she did. i think she's kind of glorifying it a little bit. >> well, it's hard for me to express my feelings. only i and god know what's in my heart so he knows if i am remorseful or not. i don't really mind if other people don't see it, you know what i mean? because i know who does see it is the person that matters and that's all. >> while lopez may be considered a high security risk by staff, the crime has only elevated her status in the eyes of some of her pod mates. >> her crime's fantastic. well, she didn't do it. she was just there, but -- >> angela says that she idolizes you for being involved in a crime where a cop was killed. >> did she?
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what if you didn't know that you might need extra coverage for more expensive items? and what if you didn't know that teen drivers are four times more likely to get into an accident? 'sup the more you know, the better you can plan for what's ahead. talk to farmers and get smarter about your insurance. ♪ we are farmers bum - pa - dum, bum - bum - bum -bum ♪ hey there, i'm veronica de la cruz. here is what is happening. president obama returning home from the g20 summit in russia where syria overshadowed the event. the president will address the nation about syria tuesday. a 6.5 magnitude quake has struck guatemala's pacific coastline. some homes have collapsed, but there are no reports of injuries. and secretary of homeland security janet napolitano officially stepped down from office a short time ago at midnight. she is leaving to head the university of california system. i'm veronica de la cruz. let's get you back to "lock-up."
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. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. rise and shine, ladies. get up. make it quick. get dressed. no talking whatsoever. listen up for instructions. left face. pick up your chains. check your marks. all right, ladies. what's rule number one. >> i will be a model inmate. >> that's exactly right. that's what we're going to do all day today and every day. mark time, march. forward march. >> left. left, left, left right left. two, three four. >> the crack of dawn brings a military-style drill to the women's general population housing unit at the maricopa
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county jail in phoenix, arizona. >> sound off, one, two. sound, off, three, four. one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. try to keep my line straight. try to get my line straight. ended up the intake. ended up the intake. couldn't make it on the yard. couldn't make it on the yard. pissed off all the guards. pissed off all the guards. march on chains. march on chains. we dare not run, we dare not hide. we dare not run, we dare not hide. right left. >> the nation's only female chain gang is preparing to make its way to a desolate field on the outskirts of the city. today's chain gang assignment is intended to do more than provide the county with free labor for a needed task. jail officials hope it will make a lasting impact on these young women, most of whom are serving short sentences for nonviolent crimes.
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>> all these people we're burying are indigent. they don't have any family, they don't have nobody that can claim them. the only thing they pretty much know is their name and their age. we're the last people who paid their dues and their respect. >> 19-year-old courtney is currently serving six months on a drug trafficking charge. this is her first day on chain gang. >> this morning i woke up. i found out we're going to do the burials. i wasn't really quite prepared for burying people. my dad had told me about it before because he'd seen it on tv about the chain gang burying people and i didn't think that as females we'd be doing it. >> ladies, real quick. on the sides of the casket are handles. do not grab the handles. they're not really handles. they are decorations, they will break and the body will drop. we will be picking it back up. just the bottom of the box, please. if you don't want to participate
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in the services, that's up to you, but you will stand there and show them respect. everybody good? >> yes. >> any questions? >> no, sir. >> hi, ladies. come on. listen up, ladies, for those of you who are new to this, some caskets are heavier than others. so make sure you guys are actually helping each other out. also make sure you're shuffling your chains. the last thing you want is for you to step on each other's chain and then have a little incident. you guys can participate whether you like it or not. it's up to you. we're not going to make you do it, but it's pretty much your choice. okay? go ahead and line up. pick up your chains if you have to, ladies. >> the burials are coordinated by a local catholic church and knights of columbus volunteers like tom martin. >> we bury about 250 a year. we just come out and do what we can to represent the families, because there's no family members here. >> we gather here to bury the body of james.
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bless, o lord, the body of james and may his soul find its home with you in heaven. >> the county allows us 15 minutes for each burial so we try to use up that 15 minutes, i think we do a pretty fair job. >> for all who die alone without friends and family, may the lord comfort them. we pray to the lord. >> hear us, o lord. >> it's just a shame. if you think you live your entire -- what these people -- 82 years and not one soul to see her go. you're thinking what if that was you, you know? >> for an end of violence in the world, we pray to the lord. >> hear us, o lord. >> for all who gather, we pray to the lord. >> hear us, o lord. >> a lot of these inmates are in here for drugs, prostitution, some don't have families, some do. for them to see what these people are going through who don't have any families that they are their families, is heartbreaking and they'll get very emotional.
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>> let us pray the prayer jesus gave us. our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. ♪ amazing grace ♪ how sweet the sound ♪ that saved a wretch like me >> since i've been here, i found out two of my friends have died from a heroin overdose. >> did you go to the funerals? >> no, i've been in jail so i wasn't able to. >> you missed their funerals? >> yeah. a lot of these people don't have families. that's really sad. it's kind of sad that us inmates had to do that and the families weren't there to do it. ♪ i once was lost, but now i'm found ♪ ♪ was blind but now i see
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>> you girls did a great job. thank you. >> thank you. >> i think their singing can be improved. >> i used to be in a choir when i was younger, but i don't have that courage, i don't have that courage to go ahead and sing in front of everybody. and then i didn't know all the words, either. i just knew that first little thing. >> every night we have a girl named cece that lives on the bottom tier and she sings "amazing grace" every night. so i heard her sing it and remembered the words. >> yeah, she is totally good. >> i was like, i need cece here. ♪ amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me ♪
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>> i don't get along with my real sister. we've just never seen eye to eye. so i take the ones i do call my sisters to heart. >> sister! >> rosie trevino who faces a possible death sentence if convicted on her murder charge is considered the unofficial leader of adam 100. >> see, we laugh, we smile, we talk. we chop it up. you hear us. we're just like yapping and we're about each other. but if you disrespect us, it's just we're petty with disrespect, you know what i mean? >> they may be sisters and happy now because this is new digs for them. this is a new playground and they're trying to see what games they can play. the luster will wear off. >> there's loyalty up in here. you've got to be very selective of your few, you know? >> if one of them were to cross each other, i'm sure they would turn on each other instantly. there's nothing in jail that's that thick. i don't even think family is that thick in jail sometimes.
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>> one of the other adam 100 inmates, cynthia apkaw violently beat another inmate several weeks ago. since then she's not been allowed the usually 1 hour of recreation time outside her cell until today. >> bear in mind, if you screw this up, you're going to go back down to the bottom. we're going to take everything from your cell. you'll have no day room access. you'll have to work your way up again. you need to keep your eye on the prize here because any little infraction, if you -- if you're passing stuff under the doors, if you're talking up against the doors and things like that, you're going to go back all the way down to nothing. just because of the nature of inmate apkaw and the violence she's had in the past, while she is on her hour of day room access, we have to keep her in a very controlled setting. >> what are you doing? >> you got your hour! >> yes. [ bleep ]. >> that's beautiful. that is so nice. that is beautiful. >> apkaw is allowed to visit her
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three pod mates but must stay at least three feet away from their doors to prevent the passage of contraband. >> oh, that's cute. >> apkaw doesn't have much time left in adam 100. she recently accepted a plea in her aggravated assault case and will soon be transferred from maricopa to state prison to begin a 2 1/2-year sentence but staff still takes plenty of precaution whenever they deal with her. >> searching her cell because she was on her hour out. every time they come back to their cell, they get searched to make sure they didn't bring back contraband or another inmate in the pod didn't pass any information. >> before long, some contraband is found. inmates call this a fishing line. >> there's a whole lot of string there. there's probably enough to go from one end of the pod to another and probably a couple of times around. they can use it to move weapons from one cell to another or notes.
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or thanks such as that. although it looks harmless, if they're moving weapons back and forth, it could be a threat to the security of the facility or one of the other inmates in there. she just got off guidelines today so this is enough to put her back on guidelines. she should know better. i may opt to put her back to no day room access. >> he probably won't give me my hour. probably take my hour away. so it really don't matter. i got my hour today. i'm leaving in two weeks. i guess it is what it is. can't sit here and feel miserable for yourself. >> back at maricopa's fourth avenue jail facility, it's not been a good day for inmate manuel martinez, either. his lawyer has just gotten him a 4 1/2-year plea bargain. more time than he was expecting. but the bad news doesn't end there. >> me and my girl broke up today. i started sensing it about two weeks ago that my girl just gave up. she says let's just go our separate ways and at first i
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said, no, [ bleep ] that. i invested too much in you, man. do you know i had a little phone book. i used to call it my chickionary. when i was out, i had all my girls, every girl i ever associated with, i had ways to get in touch with them. and in front of her, when we got together, i ripped it into two pieces and then i lit it on fire and i burned it and i put it on the ground and i stepped on it. and she says, she goes, i didn't ask you to do that, i said well i'm letting you know right now by me doing this, i don't have those numbers again. i'm committing myself to just you. do you know that's [ bleep ] up. we were supposed to get married next week, the 15th, monday. and if i would have known this, now i feel like a [ bleep ] jackass. here i am in my cell with nobody. you know what i'm saying? she's out there living her life all nonchalant just [ bleep ] doing the [ bleep ], and i'm here reading my "wall street journal" and "ok" magazines.
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so i told my lawyer, [ bleep ] this. let's do this quick. i want to get out of here. >> as a result of his plea deal, martinez will be sent to a state prison. since disavowing his gang, he knows there still may be some trouble ahead. >> i'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. if they come, they better come hard and strong. you know what i mean? and everybody who knows me will say that because i'm not going to [ bleep ] sit there and bow down. i don't bow down to nobody. >> while martinez contemplates life with neither his fiance nor his gang, there's anger in the adam 100 pod, and it's all directed at one detention officer. >> what a jerk! >> jerk. >> get that jerk! >> as inmate cynthia apkaw was returning from a visit with her lawyer, she managed to slip her cuffs. though she was quickly
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restrained again, officers removed certain possessions from her cell as a sanction. when apkaw attempted to stop them, she put up a struggle and one of the officers tased her. >> that [ bleep ] that just walked by, he's the one who tased me. tased me for no reason. he had no reason to tase me. >> she's probably going to hold a grudge for quite a while. when it occurred, when i did tase her, she stated that i bought my ticket, which basically in jail or prison means that she is going to put a hit out on me. with these inmates i would take the threat seriously. they have the potential and the means to do so. >> what happens next in this pod? do things simmer down? >> what happens next? wow, that's a big question. you tell me to ask him that? i don't know what happens next. that's just -- that's for us to know and them to find out. we don't know. we're all opportunistic criminals where you can't really predict. what opportunities we're going to have. >> i take it everybody's pissed off.
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>> no, we're not pissed. >> what are you? >> patient. yeah. coming up, one of the four adam 100 women takes a drastic measure, and the unit is shaken to its core. >> i don't think it's ever going to be the way it was again. too soft. too tasty. [ both laugh ] [ male announcer ] introducing progresso's new creamy alfredo soup. inspired by perfection. ♪ unh ♪ ♪ hey! ♪ ♪ let's go! ♪ [ male announcer ] you can choose to blend in. ♪ ♪ yeah! yeah! yeah! or you can choose to blend out. ♪ oh, yeah-eah! ♪ the all-new 2014 lexus is. it's your move.
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as night falls on the maricopa county jail, rosie trevino appears despondent after returning from a long court hearing for her capital murder trial. >> she gets like that. she pushes people away. i call her sister and all you hear is -- we don't hear nothing. it just got quiet after that. >> trevino's co-defendant, also the father of her son, filed a motion that could reduce his sentence and make it harder for trevino to defend herself in her death penalty case.
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>> sister! sister! >> just didn't feel right. didn't feel right. i have seen people trip that are facing the death penalty. but i've seen a lot more just regular weak bitches looking at a year try and kill their self- >> later that's night that's exactly what trevino tried to do. when officers did a routine check on her cell, she was passed out. she had torn off a piece of her nightgown and tightened around her neck. >> i could see her on a gurney. her face was already turning blue. so, yeah. >> the staff cut the cloth from trevino's neck and successfully revived her. she was immediately transferred to medical. >> i'm glad they got here. she's got too much family that loves her. she doesn't need to leave like that. >> with trevino in the medical
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unit, the adam 100 pod is a very different place. >> with the three of them in there, apkaw, simpson and lopez, they are all relatively calm inmates. they don't deal with anything, they sleep all day. they sleep all night. when trevino was there, she would really provoke people into acting poorly. and that's just her nature. >> yeah, she kind of connects all of us here. so, yeah, it's been a little more quiet. >> but the pod isn't quiet for long. one week later, trevino was returned to her cell. >> i don't know what happened. i just flipped. i was like the state's going to kill me, i'm going to kill myself before they kill me, you know what i mean? >> and while she claims to no longer be suicidal, her plans are nevertheless self-destructive. >> if i get the death penalty, i'm going way out. or if i get life for natural life, i'm going way out.
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not that i say i'm going to hurt myself, but i know i'm going to pick up a few new cases. i'm just -- whatever comes my way. you get the death penalty and you don't have nothing to win, nothing to lose no more, what kind of attitude would you have? i'm done. so why not be done with it, you know what i mean? and if i get to the -- when i go to the joint i'm just going to have a party it's going to be about me and my bitches and that's it. me and my bitches and the game. >> but soon after this interview, trevino would literally get a new lease on life. >> so i hear you're getting out of here, huh? really? i don't know what i'll do without you. >> after years of hearings and motions on her murder charge, she has accepted a plea bargain of 18 years for second-degree murder and will soon transfer to a state prison. >> it's been a long time with trevino. we've gone from violent, young, just amazingly angry individual to semi tranquil, i've accepted my fate kind of person.
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>> you look a lot better than you have in the past few months. you look like you have some more color. you look like you're not so distant, not so angry. yeah. just her presence leaving the building it's going to be like elvis has left the building. for me it's going to be a lot of calm. i don't think it's ever going to be the way it was again. which i'm okay with that chapter closing. >> and that's not the only change coming to adam 100. >> are you ready for prison? have you been there before? >> no, i've never been there before. >> norma lopez has also reached a plea agreement on her murder charge. she's on her way to prison for a period of 22 years. >> so you're ready to go. ready to get out of here. you all going the same direction? >> yeah. >> yeah. so it will be a relocated party. >> we're going to party. we're going to party. >> that's what i'm saying, a relocated party, just be in a different spot. >> they will be joining cynthia
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apkaw, who reached an earlier plea agreement. >> i guess all three of you going at the same time, huh? new house but same people, huh? >> we have this whole group of people and we're going to be losing them all. it's going to be strange, you have those catch names, rosie and lopez. lopez is a common name. you didn't even have to say her first name. just lopez. okay, what's going on. so you don't know what to expect, huh? >> no. a lot more you can do. >> i agree. little more comfort of home, right? >> yeah. >> when all three are gone at once, i think it will be very quiet. >> angela simpson will soon be the only woman left on the once notorious adam 100 pod. >> so it will be an interesting dynamic of what's going to happen. are there going to be inmates trying to take over their way? are there going to be others that are going to try to become rosie trevino? is simpson going to stand up and become the matriarch so to speak of the estrella jail? it's going to be interesting. i don't know what is going to happen. it will be empty. it will be empty nest syndrome, i think.
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we'll have to decide what to do with a-100 pod now. i think i can handle that. i think that will be all right for me due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. unlike prisons that house individuals convicted of crime, jails predominantly contain those accused of a crime and awaiting trial. >> get down! >> get on the ground now! >> g o
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