america's prisons, dangerous, often deadly. there are 2 million people doing time. every day is a battle to survive and to maintain order. down on your feet. down. >> among the nation's toughest, california state prison, corcoran. severely overcrowded and plagued by racial tension. we spent months inside where officers try to maintain order in an institution with a notoriously violent past. this is "lockup: corcoran --

extended stay." inmate interaction in prison is volatile at best. >> dude told me he was going to stab me. i told him to get his knife and i went in and got my knife. >> whether it's with officers. >> you are the captain, man. something has happened to you. >> disputes with other races or gangs. >> i got in a fight on the level one yard. i had lied to home boys, prison home boys of mine and i guess i had it coming. >> or even a prison romance. >> i had sex with my cellie. >> in corcoran it's not a question of if there will be violence, but when. >> everybody down!

get down! >> violence flares in the gym on "a" yard and officers move quickly to reclaim control. david salazar, the victim of the battery, refuses to identify his attacker, and the corcoran officers launch a massive investigation. >> let me see your knuckles. >> flip them. you can pick up your shirt? >> take your whole shirt off. >> hey, salazar, are you a -- >> this inmate apparently got assaulted really, really bad inside the gym. we're going to have to take him to the ambulance, to the hospital. he was severely beaten from what we can tell. we don't know if there's any weapons involved. we have our staff searching right now, making sure that there is no weapons, and trying

to find the -- the assailant. >> we responded to an alarm over on 3a in the gym and had an inmate having injuries consistent with being the victim of a battery. so we're checking the area. we're going to conduct a search. look for any possible weapons, possible suspects. >> inmates are searched one by one and sent to the yard. >> they've cleared the gym. strip searched basically everybody in the gym looking for any type of wounds, any type of suspected blood that may be on the clothing, on the skin. kind of a vague situation where we got to figure out what's going on and interview the suspects again and see what happens. >> after being treated for his injuries, david is moved to administrative segregation for his own protection as the investigation progresses. >> i was sweeping underneath my bunk and i come around the other side to sweep underneath it, sort of walk around and i go down to wipe underneath.

when i looked down, that's when i felt the first impact in here and then he kept hitting me until i blacked out. i could feel one hitting me here, one in the body and one on this side. two on this side and one on this side, but i never saw their faces or their bodies. >> tell me, what did the doctor say about your injuries? >> oh, nothing, it's just -- got a skull fracture right in here. everything else is all right. >> because of limited surveillance in the gym, no officers witnessed the assault. and due to prison politics, inmates refused to talk. >> you have an escort, visiting. >> in our search this trash can contained clothing and blood on the bottom of the boots and on the side of the boots so -- >> whether it was checking for

some reason, maybe he knows somebody, disrespect, something like that may have happened. okay? obviously, whoever did it, they tried to clean up before anything, anybody saw anything or anybody showed up. obviously, you have a gym full of inmates, almost 100 inmates, whatever their number, two officers. if something like this happens, the inmate's going to get rid of their stuff, get rid of their clothing, any type of blood they may have on them, towel, any type of clothes they have on them they're going to get rid of them. that's why we do a thorough search. search the gym, every area possible, find stuff and take it as evidence to be processed. >> you see on the bottom of the boots there's blood right there, some blood stains up here. looks like possible blood right here on the side of the boot too. >> basically when we're done we're taking a sample of that boot.

we use sterile water and take a q-tip. we take a sample and drop it in here. what we do, we -- once we shake this up, once we bring it inside the liquid, it comes out like this in that greenish-blue color basically means it's positive for blood. we found two pairs of shoes, a pair of pants so far that could have been possibly in the crime scene. they had blood on them. we tested them for blood. they came up positive. the thing is, that all these inmates basically wear the same things. you know, they have the blue jeans, the blue shirt, the boots, all state-issued. the thing is, once he gets rid of them, basically, it doesn't tie him to anything. by doing this, we have a positive, take it to the lab have it tested, test for dna, which can tie it either to the victim or possibly the suspect. hopefully the suspect. >> extensive searching yields solid results. >> basically, these two pairs of pants were in the laundry bag here. it looks like there might be some blood stains on them. we use the test for the positive presence of blood.

it appears to be positive. it's not quite as dark as we'd like it to be. we'll take a couple more swabs. as for now, definitely the right direction as for identifying suspects. >> the investigation leads the officers to evidence in inmate carlton moran's laundry bag and they quickly take him off the yard. >> turn around and walk towards us. keep going, keep going. keep going, keep going. he's clearly a suspect. >> what do you want to do with this one? >> he needs to go to the clinic. have them do a 7219. strip him out again in there. 7219. check his hands real good and check his socks. see if he has any -- maybe any redness or blood splatter around his shins. >> you do everything the officer

tells you to do, okay? >> not a problem. >> while they're searching his laundry bag they found pants that had suspected blood stains. they utilized a test to do it and it tested presumptive positive for blood so therefore he's a suspect. so pending the investigation we'll go ahead and put him in administrative segregation. >> why do you want to go to administrative segregation? >> not at this time. >> we'll note it on the lockup order. basically what happened was an inmate was assaulted in the gym, right? after we did a thorough search, pants located in your laundry bag contained suspected blood stains on the pants. therefore, with any investigation, you're going to administrative segregation, because right now if we keep you in the gym, you jeopardize the integrity of the investigations. >> so i'm being written up for

the fight? >> yep. so that's what's going to happen. >> all right. >> i'll get you an officer to get you some clothes here in just a minute. >> with a white suspect and a southern hispanic victim, officers are wary of retaliation that could explode into a race riot. >> hey, step outside for me real quick. >> you've got two south siders over there. what's dude that came from level one? is that him? >> he's right here. white boys right here. >> yeah. and then the dude to his right is a south sider as well. >> what's his name? >> that's -- that's a white dude. >> that's grande. >> he's a south sider. >> that's grande. >> basically, since we have a white suspect and a southern hispanic victim, we're seeing

how the races are interacting on the yard. see if we may have a race problem. if the whites were on one side of the yard and the southern hispanics were on the other side we could possibly have issues which we'd probably have more response out here and remove them from the yard or separate them, but since they're interacting fine it's not an issue right now. it appears that the whites just are -- that's what it appears to me. >> escort. >> apparently this guy has a shattered jaw, mutilated face. he said as you could see by my 1217 there were no marks on me, my hands anywhere. i'm not a violent criminal. there's no hiding under the radar, especially at corcoran. this is the top notch. they don't play games here. i know there's a rat everywhere you go, so, you know, if worse comes to worse hopefully the rat will pinpoint whoever did it.

either that or the investigation, one of the two will clear my name. that's all that matters to me. next, did isu nab the right guy? >> it's only obvious i didn't get in a fight. there ain't a mark on me. >> also ahead, an unorthodox gang pops up on the sny. >> i'm a gay boy gangster. we're just a group of people who are gay and pretty much stand for our own.

inmates looking to escape prison politics can request to be moved to the sensitive needs yard. the place for sex offenders, gang dropouts and any other inmate who needs protection. one such inmate is clement

contreras, who he came to prison after his drug problems spiraled out of control. >> one day i was tired working double shifts. i'm a supervisor and i was turned on to a line of meth. that was it. and it just consumed me. during my high, i started robbing banks. i have a tattoo on the back of my neck that says wicked. i go by "wicked" in prison. i have a dark side. so i wanted to be called wicked, and i didn't cover it up good enough. i was sloppy. i was really high that day and i walked right up to the counter, didn't stand in line. walked right up to it, pulled my .40 glock out of my pocket, and said, give me your money, no bait money, no dye pack, don't push the silent alarm and i want

both first and second drawers. how do i know this? because i watch discovery channel. called my dad. i go, i'm being pulled over right now by the cops. and he goes, well, you're running, you have a gun in the car, you're high. it's over. throw the gun out, throw all your drugs out and give yourself up. so i did. >> clement found out the brutal consequences of trying to hide his sexuality in prison. >> i got to county. i claimed native american so i was put in with the south siders. they didn't ask me if i was gay. somebody came in and recognized me and outed me in front of the whole dorm. and the south siders got a little upset with that. >> although clements lives in the sensitive needs yard at corcoran, he fears his sexual orientation makes him a target for assault. he looks to a particular group

for protection. >> there's a clique called gay boy gangsters, and basically how you get jumped in is county jail or you come to prison and it's a group of men that are gay. i got it tattooed on my wrist. we are pretty much respected. we don't get into fights. we don't get into that sort of thing. but we have a pretty good following and the chino and pelican bay, even on the gp yards, there are gay boy gangsters that are not on the sny yard. we're just a group of people that are gay and pretty much stand for our own. you know? that's our car is gay and then pretty much we're -- that's our car. >> while clements says the gbg is not a violent gang, some members can't leave their violent lifestyles in the past. >> i usually go by the nickname

demon. i'm a gay boy gangster. >> they call us gbgs. you have to be able to fight to get in the gay boy gangsters. most gay boy gangsters are previous gang members that dropped out or kicked out because of their sexual orientation. on the mainline i ran as a skin head. i just tried to be that guy, the tough guy. someone needed to get beat up i raised my hand. anybody that tries to forcefully take property, rape or in any way hurt a homosexual that can't defend themselves, that's where we step in. we come in and tell them, check this out. this in your one and only warning. leave our people alone. do not put hands on our people. do not try to hurt them. you will -- you will get hurt. and if they don't stop, we just take off on them. we beat them up. i just came out of the shu for possession of a weapon. i was trying to go out to the yard to stab some guy that beat

up a homosexual that couldn't defend himself. me and the guy had gotten into a fight previously, because he beat up a gay boy, and the dude told me he was going to stab me. i told him to get his knife. i went in and got my knife. well, i guess he had went into his building and told the cops that i was coming out and i was going to stab him, and when i was leaving my building the cop told me if you have a weapon, inmate turner, put the weapon on the ground and lay down. so i complied and they cuffed me up and took me to the hole. >> nicholas came to the sny yard to escape the drama of the general population. but upon his arrival, he quickly learned no yard is free of prison politics. when i got to sny i found out it's not what it's supposed to be. you have more politics. in sny than the mainline. you got a bunch of people that say i'm in pc, i can run my

mouth however i want, do whatever i want. then they see a homosexual and, oh, yeah, he's pc because he's weak. and i -- i have a conflict about being viewed as being weak. >> the gbg isn't the only gang on the sny. >> there's the 25ers out here on the yard. >> don't say nothing. >> we can't talk about it on the yard really. >> carlton would rather sit in ad seg then shed light on his own case. >> once you tell on somebody you're on "c" yard with the pcs.

they don't have one. but they do. your score still needs someone to take care of it. it needs your help. for the low price of completely free forever, you can get your credit score from credit karma.com. credit karma will give you your score for free and show you what you can do to nurture it. love your score. take care of it for free at credit karma.com.

inmate carlton moren is locked down in ad seg pending the investigation of his involvement with the vicious "a" yard battery. >> this is administrative

segregation unit, this where the inmates come from, the gp yard whenever they are in trouble. >> clear. >> turn and face the wall. >> ever been in the hole before? >> no, sir. >> all right. >> we're all waiting by the bathrooms that are outside the yard. this guy comes strolling into the bathroom with a bloody pulp, like, bloody face. the officer came out of the office, whoa, what the hell? pressed the buzzer. took us all out in the yard, inspected us and here i am. i don't have a mark on me. how am i going to break somebody's jaw? i'm not even a violent person. i don't even know what to think really. now apparently they found something in my locker or laundry bag that ties me in with whatever happened? so in the office i didn't pick a fight. there ain't a mark on me on my face or my hands. >> ironically, carlton was on the receiving end of a fight similar to this one not so long ago. >> i am in the 3a gym because i

got in a fight on the level one yard back in march and wasn't willing to give up who i got in the fight with. i got beat up pretty bad. so they put you in the 3a gym for people with warrants or security reasons and i was a security reason. they didn't know who i got in a fight with and didn't want it to happen again or worse. so they put me in there. i had lied to some homeboys, prison homeboys of mine and i guess i had it coming, but it was taken care of, you know, it's no big deal, really. like i said, they didn't know who i got in a fight with and i wasn't willing to tell them who i got in a fight with. once you tell on somebody, you're over there on the c yard with the pc cases or the rats and that's, that's all bad. you know? there has to be an investigation, and the investigation will show that bottom line it wasn't me that beat the guy up. so i'm not worried about it, really.

>> while carlton waits for some good news, gbg member, clement contreras, has some of his own. >> i have a new boyfriend now. we are in the works of getting moved in together and so i have a smile from here to here. >> when i was in the shu my whole plan was to find somebody i was going to live with and share whatever i got with, with that person and -- >> to be honest, i like him and it's never going to change. >> i like you too. >> i like you more. >> i like you more. better. >> for me, he's the person i was looking for. that's what i -- that's what i got to say. >> hopefully tomorrow we can move in together and be cellies and conduct ourselves in a manner where nobody is being offended.

you know? i'm dying to kiss him right now but i can't. you know? it's just -- it's not going to happen. >> the restrictions in prison make finding love bittersweet for clement. fellow gay boy gangster demon explains some of the hardships of his prison situation involving his teeth or lack thereof. >> went to dental the other day. got my dentures. i was a drug user. and the speed rotted my teeth. i finally got them all pulled. >> how are you eating? >> the food here is usually pretty soft. so i eat that -- if it's something i can't eat, there's usually someone at the table that's pretty cool. you know what, here, demon, don't trip. here, dude, yeah, give me that, demon and i'll give you what you can eat. cool. shoot it. >> why are you two holding hands? >> we just got in trouble for

holding hands. >> no way. >> [ bleep ]. >> we just got in trouble for holding hands. >> sexual relations between inmates that are incarcerated in california department of corrections facility is not allowed. inmates must refrain themselves from engaging in that kind of behavior. >> it's not just the officers that prohibit these relationships. it's also frowned upon by a group of the gang dropouts on the sny known as the 2-5. this group believes it runs the yard. >> some 2-5ers out here. >> don't say nothing. >> we can't talk about it on the yard, really. because a lot of people, they -- it's a role sore -- it's a sore subject with a couple of people. >> don't say nothing. too [ bleep ]. >> yeah, yeah. it's a problem with -- it's a problem on the yard and we're afraid of retaliation. so, yeah, we'd rather not say anything about it. >> let's go. >> the corcoran's institutional

gang investigators, or igi, feel it's the 2-5 gang members that should be afraid. >> as far as the 2-5s that are out here, they're scared because they know we're coming, going to come out and when we take them away, they're going to get locked up.

i've been playing harmonica about two years. ♪ i started getting the twangy sound, the way it's supposed to sound the minute i lost this tooth and i discovered that and i was never so happy to lose a tooth. makes this harp sound real good. yep. ♪ that's why it's got that train sound. ♪ it's the job of the igi to flush out gangs all over corcoran including the sny, where groups like the 2-5 have been disrupting the one area of

the prison designed to be free of gang politics. >> even though they have sensitive needs, they're still predators, still thugs, still gangsters and they don't want to give that life up. what they do, they go out in these sensitive needs yard and seize opportunity. you know, he's going to prey on the weak. they call themselves the 2-5s. in spanish, a quarter is, their pcs they say in spanish. from there they took it on to 2-5. >> they're active on our facility and other snys throughout the state here. we've placed several of them in administrative segregation, and we're in the process now of validating some of these inmates as being members of the disruptive group. we've discovered various tattoos

and symbols that are used by the 2-5. >> the validation process requires three separate pieces of evidence ranging from artwork to tattoos. >> a tattoo of a 25 here in a -- some sort of a shield. some are kind of like, you know, pretty vague. >> today, lieutenant rodriguez and his institutional gang investigators are on a mission to clean up the sny. by validating more 2-5ers and moving them off the yard. >> hopefully we'll send a message to the inmates out there that we're out here and we're going to stay on them. >> we're going to try to get them off the sny, that way the guys who come out to the sny can do their time, program, and don't have to worry about the gang. that's why they left the gp. >> hopefully we'll find guys with tattoos, written material, anything like, you see they have magazines. they'll start drawing faces on the people in the magazine like it's a tattoo and put like a 2-5 on there or the two dots and a one line. we're going to look around and see what we can get. >> want to call them out here?

>> mandatory yard, fellas. lock it up. >> what about all these? [ speaking foreign language ] >> it doesn't matter? >> no. just take it outside. take it outside. >> take that one. good. go on and get dressed. he's big, man. >> yeah, he is. >> play football in. >> no, just started growing.

>> the reason we had you down here, we're searching your cell. we got information that either you or your cellie are involved with the 2-5s. have you ever heard of the 2-5s? >> i've heard of them, but have nothing to do with them. >> they're up there searching the cell. it appears at this point they haven't found anything up to this point. i don't want to anticipate finding anything on you or we're looking at your cellie. it will be okay. just relax. all right? >> come on. >> why do you think i'm here? >> probably already know. you guys were up in my house two weeks ago. >> who was up in your house? >> put two and two together. >> who was up in your house? >> a guy was. >> it wasn't my crew. >> okay. take your shirt off, and take everything off.

>> sergeant gomez catches up with an inmate who's already received one point towards validation as a possible 2-5 member. >> [ bleep ]. you can never clean up this yard if you wanted to. you can never push anything on this yard if you wanted to. that's the point of this, man. you come to this side, that's it. >> so answer me this, is that still out here? >> everyone who i knew who was is gone. that's what blew my mind when you all came back. me? i'm like, come on, man. i'm a skinhead. i might as well degrade myself. there's no point in -- you know i'm on their side because of them dudes in the back. >> in the shower, kick it there a little bit. i find something, it's procedure. i'll get you paperwork. >> you're never going to find nothing in there.

there you go. oh, man, [ bleep ]. i've got to deal with this. it's just prison. at any time you can just be taken out of your comfort zone and put you wherever they see fit. if they deem you a hazard. even if no relevance or anything. it's just crazy. >> basically what we found, this guy's a bit of a tattoo artist. he's got all of the tattoo magazines so we are thinking, oh, we're going to find something. well, we found one tattoo gun, two tattoo guns and, you know, they say where there's smoke, there's fire. what we'll do is we'll book him on rules violation and maybe get loss of privileges or something. it is contraband. >> light bulbs, cigarette holders. graffiti with 666 on it.

>> we'll confiscate it and leave them with a receipt. that concludes this cell search. pretty much hit what we needed to hit and found what we needed to find. so we're done in here. >> the igi also finds a sketch of dice with the numbers 2 and 5 in robert's cell. this could earn him a point and bring him one step closer to being validated as a 2-5 member. >> i got a drawing pen up there. i believe it's in my folder. that's all that is. that dice and all that [ bleep ]. you guys trip on numbers and all of that. i don't put too much emphasis on numbers. me, i show what is real and that is it. i don't do that [ bleep ]. you know if i wasn't going to be stripped -- if i got something to hide, why wouldn't you do my cell first? >> how many 2-5ers do we have left on this side? >> i'm going to tell you the truth, that i know of, none, because the simple fact that either you got them all or you scared them so bad that they went into hiding. >> robert now has two out of three points the igi needs to validate him as a 2-5 member.

if another piece of evidence is discovered, he could spend the rest of his sentence in the shu. >> you know what? this whole thing is a cat and mouse game. this whole chasing these guys, cat and mouse game. they're going to get over on us most of the time and we're going to get over on them. it is our work, you know. i could say, hey, you know what, this identifies with that. it's dice. you know, i could say that's a 2 and that's a 5. to me, does it seem like it's weak? yeah. would i like to get him on a stronger point? something that's going to stick? of course. >> i got one more point and i'm gone. >> what do you mean? >> your validation points. i don't know what for -- but one more point, i'm gone. >> as far as the 2-5s they are out here, yeah, they're scared because they know we're coming and they know we're going to come out here and when we take them away they get locked up. the majority of time you don't come back to a gp. you mess around, catch our attention, you're going to get

validated and in the permanent shu. coming up, you can take the inmate out of the gang, but can you take the gang out of the inmate? and angel gives clement an ultimatum.

with robert kofman one point away from validation, the igi continues its crackdown on other suspected 2-5 members on the sny, including luis dunchez.

>> he was identified as a 2-5. i put together a validation package for him. it was submitted to the officer of correctional safety and the points were good enough to validate him. he's now validated as a member of the 2-5s. he had tattoos on him. with a 2-5. he had other written material in his property, 2-5. so slam dunk with that guy. he's now validated as a 2-5 member. >> luis is brought before an institutional classification committee in ad seg to determine if the evidence against him will land him in the shu. >> going to see if i'm going to get validated or not. >> as? >> a destructive gang member. >> what group? >> 2-5. >> what's that? >> some type of sny group and they're trying to say i'm part of it. i'm going to find out if i'm getting -- >> what do you say? >> i say, no, but -- >> why are you on sny? >> i don't want to

participate -- to avoid having to go through anything like this. i get there and i go through it anyway. >> do you understand what happened today? >> yeah. >> okay. what's happening? >> you guys are validating me for something. you guys say i done but i done nothing. you guys are saying i have been destructive. what have i been out there that is destructive? why am i being -- i haven't done nothing wrong. >> an investigation, obviously you understand you did receive your lockup order explaining the reasons for your placement in ad seg. did you receive a copy of that? you also had an administrative hearing back on 2/19 -- excuse me, says february 19th, '08. delineates your continued placement here in ad seg. you did receive that document. right? >> yeah. >> and you understand that document? >> yes. >> okay. and that document explains to you once again because you were validated as a disruptive group which will then be changed to a prison gang. all individuals who are involved in prison gangs once validated are placed in a permanent shu

because now you become a safety and security issue to the general population and/or the sny facility. we have no other recourse but to rehouse you from a gp or sny setting or permanent shu. >> i haven't gotten any write-ups. i wasn't the yard. i was programming. and i came straight from juvenile hall. so the whole time i'm down there, haven't gotten no problems, nothing. >> do you agree or disagree? >> disagree. >> what is it you disagree with? >> everything. >> anything in particular? >> you guys trying to say i'm a threat. i ain't a threat to nobody. >> thank you. i appreciate that. you have a nice day. go ahead and document he disagrees with the validation. >> what does this mean to you? >> indeterminate shu. >> which means what for you? >> transfer from here to another shu program.

what can i do? can't do nothing about it. >> as luis' fate is sealed, clement and angel grow restless waiting to hear if they'll be allowed to cell together. >> it's not good. >> he thinks because we're on camera it's going to affect the move even more. and today, we were -- we had a good yard. we had a really good yard. we were holding hands the whole time, walking the track. and we were matching -- very well. we were wearing matching sweats. and i don't know. i enjoyed it. how about you? >> it was all right. >> all right? how many times did we kiss in the yard? 50 times. and it was all right?

really? honest to god. >> it doesn't mean nothing. >> no, it doesn't mean anything. but still. we had a good time. >> yeah, we had a good time. but -- i don't know. i just finished up today. and you know why.

america's prisons, dangerous, often deadly. there are 2 million people doing time. every day is a battle to survive and to maintain order. >> down, on your feet! down! >> among the nation's toughest, california state prison corcoran, severely overcrowded and plagued by racial tension. we spent months inside, where officers try to maintain order in an institution with a notoriously violent past.