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." >> what is it? what is it? >> a fight. >> when our crews go behind prison walls, we know always to expect the unexpected. we've seen bloody assaults. >> we got another cut up here, guys. >> inmate rage. >> we will not negotiate with terrorists!

some of the most memorable unexpected moments encountered inside. america's prisons. >> never a dull moment. >> we send our producers and crews inside prisons their job is to be objective observers. in the first week in colorado something unusual happened. we inadvertently became part of the story we were covering. >> why is everybody getting agitated? >> we were in ad seg, administrative segregation, the prison within the prison. we started hearing inmates screaming out things and i started to hear them talking about chomos which are sex offenders and then mayhem erupted. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ]

>> i don't want -- >> this ain't free. >> i believe he threw liquid substance under the door that smelled somewhat suspicious and we're going to report that. >> jonathan hall, serving 40 years for murder, was one of the first inmates to make it clear we weren't welcome in administrative segregation. >> unless he does calm down and follow our rules and orders, he'll be cell extracted. >> inmate hall won't calm down. so they call in the special response team. and they suit up in their gear. in these situations, when we want to film it, they always have us suit up as well. >> we'll give him the verbal command. >> if he doesn't comply at that point, we'll introduce o.c. >> you got it? >> uh-huh.

>> inmate hall, come to the door and cuff up. [ bleep ]. come to the hall. come to the door and cuff up. if you do not cuff up, we will introduce chemical agents. are you going to comply? [ bleep ] >> there's an opening. >> hall has covered his food port and window with a mattress. but the special response team knocks it down and fires a couple of short bursts of o.c. gas. >> hall, you're going to be all right, all right? listen to my orders, okay? >> i can't. >> i need you to get up on your knees.

get up on your knees. come on, help us out. >> oh. >> shooting an extraction wearing a gas mask is pretty difficult. you're kept a certain distance from the view finder. it's hard to see. the seal is compromised a bit. so there is some of the gas that leaks in. eyes are watering a bit. but that's just part of it. we go in there and do the best we can to show what's going on. >> what's going on with these [ bleep ]? i need fresh air. i can't breathe. >> you're all right, hall. >> so that was quite a first day. the next day we had to go back into ad seg to continue doing our interviews and one of the

inmates we were going to interview was michael gill. one of the first things he shared with us is that on the streets, he was a professional wrestler. >> i do what you see on tv, like wwe. but i do -- i do it off camera most of the time. and at smaller arenas. mainly around kansas, colorado, iowa, stuff like that. >> what's your name? >> my wrestling name? bud dubey. it was a stoner character. >> gill had just finished explaining that he was currently at limon on a parole violation when the interview was interrupted by a commotion on the ad seg tier. >> that's crazy. what's that about? >> yeah, i'm curious, too. i can hear water running and we had an officer in the room with us that was doing our security and i asked him, what's going on? when he opened the door, you

just heard this cascading water. >> what happened? >> they flooded the tier. >> it's awesome. >> you better go get that. >> i walked out of the interview room and was shocked to see water cascading down from the top tier down onto the floor. i'd never seen anything like that in my life in a prison. >> what happened? >> what did you do, did you do this? >> i didn't do nothing. >> what happened? >> i have no idea. >> what does it look like happened? >> i'm not even going to say nothing with that door opened. >> in the midst of this crazy scene, the officers were taking michael gill back to his cell, at which point he just started cracking jokes with the staff members. >> if you let me see the key, i'll do the rest. oh, i guess that's real cool. thanks for having faith in me. >> i have faith that you'll try and escape.

>> see? >> you're crazy, sarge. can i use your walkie talkie real quick? >> after following gill to his cell, our crew is taken to the source of the flood. [ bleep ] george graf, serving three years for motor vehicle theft, started the flood by overflowing his toilet. >> [ bleep ], [ bleep ] [ bleep ] >> pull your seat away there, please. >> [ bleep ]. >> i'm sorry? >> [ bleep ]. >> why don't you -- >> [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> are you flooding out here or what? >> [ bleep ] [ bleep ] >> you know it's not hurting my

feelings. i'll stand here and do what i have to. >> in every prison, filming in ad seg is a vital component to telling these stories. because of all of this commotion the warden comes up to us and says, you can't film there anymore. >> we had two offenders act out for the camera to put a show on for the camera crew so we asked the camera crew to stop filming in segregation in order to calm these guys down. and from this point on we'll assess whether we'll allow the crew to come back in to segregation. >> a week later, prison officials allowed us back in to the administrative segregation unit where we conducted several more interviews without further incident. ien george gahf and jonathan hall consented to interviews and allowed us to shoot footage. a few months after michael gill was released on parole. >> coming up, our producer follows a trail of blood that leads to one of the most shocking scenes ever shown on "lockup."

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due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. when our crews are filming inside high security prisons they know that violence can erupt at any moment. while they are prepared for it, when it happens it can still be shocking. >> during our extended stay shoot inside indiana state prison we walked into one of the bloodiest encounters in "lockup" history. >> we were filming in one of the housing units and we heard a call come over the radio instantly all staff members started running. we picked up our gear and ran with them. >> what is it? >> a fight. >> there was just a chaotic scene.

by the time we got there they were already pulling people out coming back from chow. and they were trying to find a victim of what we thought at the time was a fight. >> i don't know who it involved. >> i don't know. no. i told these guys to hold up. >> blood all over here. where is the guy that got stabbed? >> immediately it became a large crime scene. >> looking for a long-haired white guy. >> i looked over and saw our field producer take off and she had a little camera that she was filming w. i didn't see who she was filming but saw her make her way into the infirmary. >> i saw a man walking toward me and realized it was the victim for only one reason. there was blood on his shirt. and i saw blood drops coming from him so i started to follow him into the medical building. i was a little shocked because every time they would remove

another article of his clothing, there was a bigger and deeper gash. but the bizarre thing about it was all he was concerned about was his tennis shoes. >> don't throw them away. they are brand spanking new. can you put them 18 bag please? >> we got another cut up here, guys. going to get you fixed. >> is this worse than this? >> get him up front. >> i need more. >> the fact that the wounds were so graphic, that they actually had to be blurred i think it was -- it was best for all, they were some of the worst wounds i've seen. >> okay. you want to go for a ride? >> don't worry about those.

>> the victim, pat eler, serving 40 years for attempted murder, spent two weeks at a local hospital before returning to prison. his attacker, michael ray stafford, was found guilty of the stabbing at a disciplinary hearing and received extra time in the prison segregation unit but no criminal charges were filed against him because elerman refused to cooperate with the investigators. we caught up with elerman on the day he returned to general population. >> after pat recovered from his injuries and we saw him on the yard again one of the first comments he made, was about his shoes. >> glad i got my shoes. because i seen blood on my shoes. >> it's indicative of prison life, you have so few personal items and you certainly don't have very many things that are brand new, these shoes were new, they were a symbol of him having some kind of success or look if you will as a convict in prison and he wanted to keep them as

pristine as possible. even during this horrific situation. >> is this the end of it? >> no. if i ever see him again, i can't say nothing. of course i can't say nothing. if i say no, i'm going to the hole. he doesn't want to hear i'm going to kill this guy. next time i see him. i can't have him coming up behind me thinking i'm going to give him in doing this again. just because he's thinking i'm going to get him back. he's going to want to jump first. well i got to jump first but i'm not gonna. i can't tell you i'm going to because i'll be in seg. i can't -- i'm not mad at the guy. if more people would do what he did instead of this poking and running, this would be a different prison. i'm not mad at this guy. >> was he justified in cutting you? >> no. but he did what he thought he had to do. so it could have been a lot worse. and i'm sort of impressed that

he went that far. he could have cut me and ran. >> this one alone. >> the throat. >> that's close to the artery. >> yeah. would have been my ticket out. >> coming up. >> is it time for you to leave? >> my time expired. >> an inmate struggles with reality before making a heartbreaking realization.

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correctional officers and "lockup" camera crews share something in common. they never know moment to moment what they might encounter behind prison walls. but the unexpected events we cover in prison are not always violent. >> close the door. >> sometimes they are just heartbreaking. during our initial scout at indiana state prison our main goal was to get familiar with the prison prior to beginning formal production. but when we toured the chronic care unit which houses mentally ill inmates, we walked in on a quiet drama. >> we didn't even have a sound guy with us. but when we came upon this scene we knew we had to roll.

>> we came upon this inmate, michael steele, who was sitting outside his cell with his items packed up. he was convince head was going home that day. it was a problem for the prison because nobody could dissuade him from this notion. >> i've been in prison since november 3, 1988le. and i'm charged with and i'm not guilty of. >> what's going on today? >> i'm leaving prison. >> is it time for you to leave? >> prison time expired. >> so what are you doing sitting here waiting for what? >> release. >> how long have you been waiting here? >> probably 14 weeks. >> in reality, michael steele was nowhere near his prison release date. he is serving 110 years for murder and attempted murder.

>> which one of these cells was yours? >> that is the cell. >> where did you sleep when you were here? did you sleep in one of these cells when you were here? >> the more i asked for details about him leaving, he started to shut down. it was almost as if i was breaking his belief system. the staff then started to move in and they were making it very clear to him he was going to have to comply and go back in his cell. >> michael. >> once he was surrounded by all of these staff members,

everything just kind of fell apart for him and he broke down sobbing. >> that was tough. that was really difficult to film because he was just broken. you know. he was a sad, sad time. >> eventually prison staff had no choice but to physically carry steele back into his cell. >> here we go. come on. there we go. there we go. don't hurt yourself. one, two, three. bring him in. >> he kind of went limp and then they dragged him back in his cell, propped him up on his cot and he just sat there staring straight ahead but looking very much like a broken man. >> we visited steele several

weeks later. he agreed to speak with us about the incident we had filmed earlier. both he and prison medical staff also gave us permission to air the footage we had shot of him. >> that day i saw you up here with your things packed ready to go home, did you believe in your heart you were going to go home? >> yes. >> what about now? >> i don't think so. >> so what do you think? you think you're going to have to stay in this housing unit? >> i hope not. >> what do you want? >> i want to be released from prison. >> prison psychologist reggie matias hopes steele will be well enough to transition to a less restrictive housing unit. >> we have a work program for the inmates in the chronic care unit where they work in general population, they do that for a week or so, maybe two, if it looks like it's going well, then they move them out to a dorm and they can go to work from there. essentially they would be discharged from the chronic care unit. >> i heard you have been doing

much, much better these days. good. the plan is as soon as you get back to your usual self we'll get you back out there working. so you worked in the kitchen, right? >> yes, in the kitchen. >> you were pretty popular. >> best cook over there. >> that's what i heard. they said they liked it when you were over there because the food was good. >> i have a passion for cooking. >> when the subject of getting a job in population arises, steele suddenly changes his tone and accuses dr. mattias of having deceived him. >> work out there in population i don't know if they trust you. >> that's understandable. when you were on rtu i wasn't sure you could handle it. i was telling you that. now things look better. trust is earned and you know, as time goes on i think you'll see that we want to get you -- >> you can't be trusted. >> okay. well, as time goes on hopefully

we can do things to change your mind. >> telling lies to me. i never trusted again. >> okay. like i said, trust is earned. the main thing is we want to get you back out to population and back out working. that's the goal. i think he's convinced that i am responsible for keeping him on a mental health unit. and i guess he's right i think if he were more open to us we would have a better sense it would be okay to put him back out there. >> still playing chess? >> i don't play chess. >> someone told me you were a chess player. >> i don't know how to play chess. >> really? >> lied to you. >> we checked back on steele's progress, several weeks later. >> he had been telling the mental health staff he was all ready to begin working in population. we made arrangements for him to do that. i believe they came to pick him up and he said no, i'm not going. so for now he's going to stay on the chronic care unit and go

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we traveled here to the famous fisherman's wharf in monterey, california, because of a letter we got from one of our viewers. he wrote us that he was worried his father's business needed a makeover. so we assembled our s.w.a.t. team of business experts to swoop in and shake things up. that's coming up next on a special edition of "your business." small businesses are

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