tv Lockup Raw MSNBC January 1, 2014 12:00am-1:01am PST
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due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. mns 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 ] is this? >> 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 this point. >> i mean this [ bleep ] for
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real. that's what you all need to film. >> people often ask me if we've ever had a member of our production crew attacked or somehow hurt in prison. fortunately, the answer to that is no. security is always at the forefront of our mind. 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 incident. >> about halfway through our extended stay series for the correctional facility in alabama, our crew experienced that relate firsthand. they had just finished a routine into interview with an inmate at his cell. >> there was a phone call. one of our producers went back to get this phone call. if it wasn't for that, we would have been gone. we would have been out to lunch. as we're standing there, waiting
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for our producer to finish with this phone call, these officers run by. obviously, i turn on the camera, press record and i roll with them. >> suddenly all these officers ran by me. we heard all this commotion. 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 assail atlanta. >> the fun in-y part of that experience, i was so caught up with the officers that i didn't know until later that i ran right by the actual person that did the stabbing. in the video you can see the knife, you can see the officer standing with the guy that did the stabbing, but i followed the
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action through to the victim. >> hold that. >> come on, come on. >> go, go, go. >> move it. >> lock him up. >> move it. >> move. >> where he had him koernd up at, he probably could have killed him. looked like he might have got an artery. it was gushing out pretty good. >> we followed the victim all the way to 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 into 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 culliver placed the prison on lockdown, confining every inmate to his cell. >> lock down. we are under a lockdown. >> all right, lockdown, gentlemen. take it in, let's go!
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>> 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? >> 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
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you don't retaliate. >> well, i just come here from work one day, and they were missing, and which is one good thing about holman, they talk about everything. i knew it was just a matter of time finding 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 about 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 inmade in a back hallway near the laundry. >> population has no access back there. so 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 --
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>> no. doesn't work like that. >> it doesn't work like that? >> doesn't work like that. >> 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, i mean, 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
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cost $10 or $100. but if nothing else, the coffee alone was enough to do what i did. >> that's the way it is here? >> that's the way it is the way i live it. >> 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 not going to 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 happy to get their hands on shawn gaines. >> the ex-leader of a white supremacist gang faces a whole
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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 different feel than other areas of the jail, and that's because there's an eerie silence. and the reason there's an eerie silence, as opposed to other segregation units, is because the inmates are housed behind double sets of doors. this is as close to a hannibal lechter cell environment as you can get. they don't even leave for they don't even have to leave their cell area for recollect relation.
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they just open one of the interior sliding doors and they walk out and they have their 45 minutes of recreation each day, and then boom. right back 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've lived here longer than i ever lived in one spot in my entire life even growing up as a kid, so it's just, you know -- i have 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 once a major player in a violent
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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 i donate them to the 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 a bunch of other grown-ass men what to do. all the girls flocked to that scene. i mean, it's just a nonstop party. 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 power in the skinhead movement. >> and when he took off his shirt, he had some of the most
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intense nazi skinhead, white power tattoos that i've ever seen on an inmate. and what's important to understand about tattoos like the ones that shawn had is that you don't get to just put those on your body. you have to do what the inmates call earn your ink. 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 on the yard and beat him up pretty bad. 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 you can get, which is what's on my back. >> what do you do to get that? >> shed the blood of another race. >> the murder that landed gaines
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in the maricopa county jail, 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 we went over there to intimidate the guy into giving her money back. the intention was to have three burly skinheads going in there, boots on, white power clothing, just looking mean. and one is carrying a baseball bat and one is carrying a shotgun, the other a knife. i mean, i had a -- >> what were you carrying? >> i was carrying a 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.
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he and his lawyer have been fighting to get the charges 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, yes. where i carry guilt, i could have stopped it. i could have stepped up and grabbed him. i mean, i played the scenario over and 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. that was just as evil as any one of the rest of the 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 all. >> i have pulled people covers that were not known. i have given up information on other crimes. i've not held back.
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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've 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 ings 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 actually 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. i mean, 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.
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>> it's kill or be killed for me now, so i'll spend my time in 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 was in here. the interview i did with southern poverty law center. she actually read that and just dropped me a couple postcards of encouragement, commending the changes i've made and such. 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. so, i couldn't ask for more. and not to mention, she's willing to stand by me and do the time with me, so i'm pretty blessed. >> coming up --
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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.
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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 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 when 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. >> hi.
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>> that's okay. that's okay. hey, caden, are you going to smile for mommy? there's a smile. smile! >> there's these women in our church that still have the heart for little ones, even though my baby's 13. so, women joy 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 have 2% of the prisoners actually get visitors every week. so, that tugged at my heart, too, and i just began praying for the person that i needed to minister to. it's been a really neat
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transition just seeing jennifer from one point to now. it's just a totally different person. >> 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 that 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 back. >> what are you doing while you're in prison? how are you spending your days here? >> ged classes, and then hopefully, after i get my ged, i start some college classes.
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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 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. >> mm-hmm. >> and fruit and a bottle and he goes for his six-month checkup next week and he'll probably get shots. >> oh, no, bubba, you've got to get shots! look at your mama. this is your mama, 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 go back to the cell. >> hopefully, when she gets out, it will be easier for them to bond again and be connected. >> you know, i just talk to him
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the whole time and try to look 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 that time would hold still so i could spend more time with him, but i treasure every minute, you know? >> coming up -- >> what the [ bleep ] this look like? i'm moving about the dome. >> one inmate struggles, not only with his anger but his anger management class. >> i took a ten-pound weight and i bust his head.
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some are already calling it green wednesday. the sale of marijuana for recreational use is now legal in colorado. anyone over the age of 21 can buy pot at licensed stores. there's more trouble for target less than two weeks after disclosing a massive data breach. the retailer saying a number of gift cards sold over the
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holidays were not properly activated. 2013 was a winning year for home prices. according to one index, they are up more than 13%. how about that for a happy new year? new 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. did y'all know they broke a record yesterday in mobile? it was 100 degrees. that was a 120-year-old record.
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does anybody agree in here when everybody gets hot everybody gets meaner and madder? >> ain't no doubt. >> packed into a tiny classroom without air conditioning, mental health professional 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 get a disciplinary? is it possible? >> it is possible. all you have to do is obey authority and stuff, right? >> walter says it is. do you agree or disagree? >> i disagree with walt. i i've been in here for years and i got 57 disciplinaries. some of them i got was because of the administration because of certain situations happened. just like i caught a case on work release where somebody broke in my box and i stabbed him. 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
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was very vocal about advocating violence. >> i come to prison when i was 21 years old. i'm 21 years old, maximum security prison. guy said he's been locked up 30 years and he said he liked me in a gay way. if i let him tell me stuff like that, ain't no telling what probably would have happened. so i took a ten-pound weight and i bust his head. you see what i'm saying? that's what i'm talking about in situations like that. like that on work release. they broke in my box. all he had to do was leave my stuff alone. they broke in my box one time, 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 and had
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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. know what i'm saying? so, people say, you can't blame other people for what you do, can't blame other people for your action. that's a damn lie. >> why? >> you've got to blame other people. you've got to blame other people, because you can do the best you can and try to stay -- 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 i'm going to responsibility -- >> no, you can never blame other people for your behavior. you don't think there's anything
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wrong with the way you behave or the way you handle stress and anger? then 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 was the least restrictive housing unit at holman. >> it's for honorable inmates that are trying to change their life and learn different things, but this is 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. you've got certain guys in here that feel like they [ bleep ], and then they apply the rules -- they've got a list of rules here, but it only applies to certain people, certain group of people. >> what are some of the things people have done to provoke you?
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>> breaking my box, disrespect me verbally, butch into me, don't say excuse me, curse at me, any of them -- the least little thing, man, 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. >> how? >> any way, any means necessary, i'm going to handle you, 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? >> yeah. >> [ bleep ] no. [ bleep ] no. in the free world i ain't got to deal with those dudes. if i stand up for what's right, then nobody else -- it's nobody else'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
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been making much progress with the philosophy of anger 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, and let's go over this thing, this write-up you got. >> bradley's write-up included testimony from other honored dorm inmates, all of whom agreed that bradley started the confrontation. >> 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. >> but i didn't threaten that guy or nothing. i walked off. my fists weren't balled up or nothing. >> it says here they felt that if you would improve by being allowed to stay in the dorm, then they would recommend him to stay. however, they feel like you're not going to stop this behavior and they're not going to allow it. so, the bottom line is that the community manager's
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recommendation is that you be moved out of the dorm. so right now today i'm going to agree with them. i'm going to agree with them, all right? you got 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 bunch of [ bleep ]. even ask for [ bleep ]. man, this is [ bleep ] up. i'm going to be me. i ain't going to be what you want me to. i ain't going to do what you want me to do. i ain't going to say what you want me to say. i'm going to stand on my own -- i stand here for 11 years. i'm going to continue to stand on it. >> technically, my job is to be an observer, but there was something about percy every single time i talked to him, i think i got a little tired of hearing this blame game from him. so, i decided to confront him. >> you know what, 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, percy. you're blaming everybody else.
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>> oh, that's what you think. i ain't blaming -- that's what you think. that's what you think. i don't get mad at everybody, you know what i'm saying. you got to see some of the [ bleep ] they do around here. what you expect me to do? what 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. they're ready to take you. >> 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? >> yeah, they woke me up with
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this [ bleep ] with a bunch of [ bleep ] in here. a bunch of [ bleep ] and a bunch of [ bleep ]. that's what 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, you know? >> what's that? >> my bad if i kind of gripd at you, man. i was just waking up. >> i understand. totally. >> 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 know. 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 and he actually stopped and was realizing how he was being perceived by other people. when percy got moved back into the general population dorm, he
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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 there the whole time. i been in these dorms 11 years. all these [ bleep ] know me. i been in prison 11 years. this is just another part of prison. i'm talking about i don't need to worry about this [ bleep ] redneck, that cracker man. this is real. this is real. that's what you need to film. this real. that blooep mrooep fake and passive and 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've 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
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thought, well, you know, this is going to be a kind of 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 direction, you know what i'm saying? like boxing and working on it and all that 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 around. i ain't to the point where i'm ready to let go of certain things. >> you know shlgs the first step towards solving a problem is admitting there's a problem. and that sort of sounds like what you're doing now. >> i'm going to use a cliche. i want to chew up the meat and spit out the bone, you know what i'm saying, but i'm so pig-headed and stubborn, i'm going to eat the whole chicken, you know what i'm saying? >> bone and all, huh? >> bone and all.
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>> one of the hardest things 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 a story. and in the case of percy, it felt like we were seeing a beginning. >> coming up -- >> oh, look at you. >> two friends cope with the reality of a premature end to a prison sentence.
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card just for inquiring about the sleep number bed. ask about our risk-free 100-night in-home trial. call now for your free information kit and a free $50 savings card. call now! 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 the life and death conflict wasn't rooted in violence, it was rooted in compassion. and it involved an inmate named pizzaman. >> see him at the gas station and supermarket, where i used to work at the pizza place. that's right. you're the pizza man.
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so it just stuck. i got the same tattoo on my chest. >> how did it stick in prison? >> because everybody knows me and a lot of people here from my town, plus it was all over the news, my story, the case, you know. >> the reason john "pizza man" was all over the news 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 -- he said i just -- >> disgruntled. >> employee, 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 g >> i got psoriasis of the liver
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and stomach hernia and they can't give me no treatments. >> 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 inmate. >> 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 really care about him. >> god answered my prayer and gave me the ability to clean him up from his head to his feet.
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>> 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 we was -- you know, it was crazy. you know, we like, man. well, come -- come to find out that there was a guy 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. >> you know, we hugging on him 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. this guy i have to make sure he don't pee on the walls, you
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know. it's things -- like y'all was to see how big his groin, testicles is, how big his stomach is. look how swollen his feet are. >> my kneecap is twice the size of this one. >> 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 infirmry 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 attitude about it. he would just laugh right back
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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 get my shower, brother. what's up? >> coming up -- >> i woke up in the hospital. >> john maxi takes a turn for the worse. >> he was laying right here.
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>> i 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, but -- >> you told them do not resuscitate you. >> yeah. but now i have changed at the hospital on the street and in here. >> his change of heart regarding his do not resuscitate request was influenced by his best friend and caregive, joseph monigan. >> i told him i wasn't going to take care of him if they wasn't going to resuscitate him. so he had to sign legal documents, if i'm going to take care of him, he has to be
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willing to take care of himself, too, because i care about him. this is my brother. you don't see the resemblance? >> i do, actually. >> 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. >> maxi's 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, for instance, find out. well, you're going to give my liver to a criminal. some people would be upset about that, and so there's -- 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. >> every day i think it was a question mark about maxi and his health. and then we had arrived one day,
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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 that he had this an event during the night and he was being rushed to the hospital. >> what was the last communication you two had? >> [ bleep ]. 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 made me feel good. that's the type of relationship we got. >> from what monigan had told us, maxi became very disoriented. he said usually that meant one thing and that was he was probably most likely going to be
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in a coma soon. >> he was laying right here like he was in his bunk. so i got him up and he laid 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, in front of his wheelchair. so when i woke up i see him sitting on the floor and i turn to him, this isn't aain't your bunk, it's the floor. he think he's sitting in the wheelchair. then i realized that he done ran out of gas. ain't no 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. >> i ain't got nobody to laugh and joke and kick it with right now. because we could be watching tv
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and we'd be interacting. and they don't just be me, it be other people that would be and and -- you know, the people that love him when they talking to him and 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? >> nope. nope. >> we finished our shoot shortly after we did that last interview with monigan, and then we found out a few weeks later that maxi never returned to the prison. he passed away. and monig a. n never got to say good-bye to him.
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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." >> if personal relationships can get complicated on the outside, they can be even more complicated behind bars. >> my mom gave me the best advice. everything that has happened in my life, she told me that was going to happen. >> are you having a relationship
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