two of them are in other housing units at bexar county.e. phillips also says he is willing to accept the consequences of his actions but feels the murder charge ties much. >> even they've want to come at me with aggravated assault. i am willing to do that. but i didn't murder the guy. i've didn't have the intentions to murder him. >> the stress of his case may be taking a toll tin other ways to. day, phillips is eating a regular meal instead of his usual diet plate. and topping it off with a second helping. >> anything it better than the diet tray. in the women's wing of the jail, josie sanchez's case is drawing closer to a conclusion. she admits to brutally beating her 3-year-old son while high on heroin. sanchez, recently signed a plea deal and today will receive her sentence. she doesn't know what it will be. but she at least knows the worst case scenario. >> i was signing the papers on a 14 year cap, you know it wasn't a lifetime. it felt like i was signing my life away. it is a good deal. compared to five to 99. >> though sanchez can

units. >> san antonio's bexar county jail houses 3,500 men and women. there are separate housing units for active and ex-gang members. but that is just the start. the jail also attempts to identify and segregate gay inmates in their own housing units. >> it is one of our interview questions when they first come in, we ask them are you currently a homosexual. if they say yes, we have to give them an option to house in the homosexual unit for safety and security. >> within the homosexual unit, inmates are classified as either masculine or feminine. >> are you masculine or are you fem? >> i'm gay. i'm gay. >> okay. not me, honey, i am fem. >> you have your masculines are more manley, straight acting, straight looking. >> what's really going on? >> then you have your fems that are, you know, some of them take hormones so they act like girls. >> they live their life as women in the word. transsexuals, drag queens. they're walking around with bras, thongs, things in their hair, being dramatic, loud. 80% of the fights are the fems. shut the [ bleep ], [ bleep

but sean phillips believes that his incarceration at the bexar county jail may have been the one thinghat actually saved his life in here, pretty much knocking at death's door. ♪ >> phillips is currently awaiting trial on a murder charge to which he has pled not guilty. when he was first booked into the jail, the 5'10" inmate weighed 437 pounds. >> i was a type 2 diabetic. i was taking insulin twice a day. i couldn't even walk half a block without almost having a heart attack. >> but in the year and a half he has been here, phillips has reduced his weight by almost 1/3. >> i was 437 when i came in. i am now 265 pounds. >> phillips has had several prior convictions for burglary and theft. >> these are some of the previous photos of mr. phillips that we have. 2001, 2003. >> from 200 pounds to morbid obesity, his mug shots tell the story of his exponential weight gain. >> my self-esteem out there in the free had plummeted. i'd stopped giving a care about everything. i was drinking anywhere from a bottle to a bottle and a half of jack a day. i started eating and eating as a comfort. >> but

and it wasn't his first at bexar county. >> my enemy list here in bexar county is four pages long.two page, three page, four page, and you're like dang, how do you all these enemies? >> for starting the fight verlander may receive time in segregation. but despite his membership in the white supremacist gang the aryan brotherhood he insists race played no role in the fight. >> i'm not a racist person. i don't believe in racial ideology. i believe that races should be separated amongst themselves, in which case they are in our society. i don't hate nobody. if i hate you then i'm probably going to try to kill you. and there's probably a pretty [ bleep ] good reason why i'm trying to kill you. >> verlander was placed in a temporary cooldown cell for 24 hours. now he is back in his own cell with his cellmate, shawn osborne. ♪ i know that you've been feeling me all this time ♪ ♪ we know it's all been okay but today we're going to say whatever is on our mind ♪ >> he pops off. he's got lyrics that just come out of his head that just flow. ♪ a little saxophone. >> you know what i mean? >> s

the bexar county jail is a modern-day fortress that houses approximately 3,500 male and female inmatesmost have only been charged with crimes and are awaiting trial for the resolution of their cases. >> we are very regulated on how we have to handle inmates. we realize that even though they're incarcerated, they still have rights. we also realize that we're not here to punish or to convict anyone. it's just to hold them. >> but in jail, holding inmates is never a simple proposition, especially when they don't want to be held. >> a lot of the gang members, because they're secured in the cell for 23 hours a day, they've got all that time to, you know, think of different games they can play with the officers. because they're trying to create a reputation for themselves that they're not to be messed with. >> i'm easy to get along with, but once somebody disrespects me or something, we're going to take care of business. >> jose hidalgo is a member of what efficiency describe is the fastes growing and most notorious gang in the jail, but hidalgo describes the gang as more of a femllowship. >

at bexar county jail he's segregated with members of his gang. in prison he could be exposed to his gang's archrivals, the texas mexican mafia and that is a conflict in more ways than one. >> the alonzos are a large family with in the mexican mafia, three or four brothers with in the alonzos all mexican mafia. >> in addition, alonzo's grandfather is reputed to be one of the texas mexican mafia's founders and current leaders. >> i didn't want to be a part of that organization, because there's things you got to do and i wouldn't want anybody to tell me what to do. say there is a hit you got to do and maybe it's on your brother whatever, and you got to do it or it's on you next. it's not for me, wasn't for me. i don't like their style. >> alonzo's gang, the tango orojons splintered in the 1990s, since then they have become enemies, but family ties like alonzo's have probably helped reduce the bloodshed. >> always rumored about the two groups, when will there be war, when will it carry into the streets, when will the bloodbath begin? i remembered ask

kyle beauchamp, experienced undeniable changes in his stay at bexar county. now a trustee or inmate order. >> i have been working laundry for a week now. work, 9. 45, 10:00, whenever we are done. 6:00 in the morning. 7:00 in the morning. one of the benefits working laundry, coming out of the pod. eight, nine hours on end. also we work for food. we get two trays in the morning. two trays in the morning is a lot better than one tray in the morning. we get it first. we get it hot. that is always a plus. >> beauchamp has a new hair style and considerably more noticeable than the one that prompted him to request housing in the homosexual unit for safety >> i got one of my friends in the pod to cut my hair. i was getting a little hot during the dryer work. i like it a lot. it keeps me cool. change has come to cellmate joey rhode. he has received permission to transfer to an all straight, male, general population dorm. >> i requested to be moved out of the first place i was in. only because i had stalkers. and got a little tough there. it wasn't what i was really ex

. >> san antonio's bexar county jail is a fortress of brick, steel and razor wire. capable of housing up to 4500 men and women. some of the inmates here have been convicted and are serving short sentences. but most have only been charged with crimes. and are awaiting trial with the resolution of their cases. then there are inmates like benny alonzo, he's been convicted of felony gun possession. in less than 24 hours, he will appear before a judge to learn his sentence. >> i've been stressing a lot, too, though. i can't eat. i haven't ate lunch in three days already. >> do something, dog. >> i letter know. >> alonzo will most likely be sentenced to state prison but it won't be the first time. >> how many times have you been incarcerated? >> oh, couple of times. i mean, every time i get locked -- i can't really remember. maybe like seven times, sick times. i don't know. >> sold heroin, crack, coke, weed, anything. one-stop shop at the house. started using drugs, started the cycle going down. just sucks, that lifestyle is no good. >> compounding the stress of his s sen

when he pounds, he pushes the needle. >> serve other bexar county inmates also make their tattoo guns and the source of their knowledge could very well spring from just one man, jose hidalgo. >> early on in his incarceration he was teaching people how to create the tattoo rigs and as a result they were destroying county property. >> when we're in the cell 23 hour as day, we get creative in breaking lights to get the wire. we burn grease to make the ink. >> even though we pulled him out, the knowledge he gave them is still something we're combatting today because inmates are constantly making rigs and constantly tearing apart light fixtures and it's something that he started. >> hidalgo has also been on the receiving end of the jailhouse tattoo trade. >> when hidalgo first came into the facility, he didn't have anywheres as near. most he has received he's received within our facility and he's very proud of his tattoos. >> on top of my eyebrows it says made in the hood. was made in the hood. 227. >> 78327. it's a zip. i'm player, so that's why i got that. i got me females -- >> his unde

. >> for years, the mexican mafia has been the largest and most powerful gang at bexar county. but now a new gang has emerged, born in san antonio, and rapidly spreading both on the streets and in prisons and jails. they are called the tango orojos. >> at one point they were all together. as the years progressed they eventually broke away and now they're at odds with each other. >> they began as foot soldiers with the mexican mafia. but in the 1990s they split off to form their own gang, which today rejects the mafia's strict rules and structure. >> they're very loose. there's no constitution. there's no real process of getting in. you can literally be in tomorrow if you want. they recruit on a daily basis. you send one to the population, but then 24 hours you're going to have three people with them. what started out as a few members quickly grew into hundreds of members. and we went from having a small problem to having a large problem. we eventually just had to get all the ojeones and basically corral them into one living area, four units. send the mafia over here, the ojeone

so, this takes -- these numbers take some digging, but it's clear that there you had in bexar county where this new -- the new coalition is being born, this place where, you know, texas is going to turn purple and bexar county is the new boston. you've got to ask yourself about that latino vote. it's a very middle class, very middle-of-the-road mexican american vote, and in that context where there's a weaker democratic coalition and a much 31 larger messaging from the republican party, you've got what would appear to be a much more even split. we would have to do precinct level analysis there to really try and figure that out. >> but there -- i mean actually as a sort of -- you know if you were an uninitiated listener, i mean what would be stunning here is that there are these places in america where it's 20%, 30%, 50% latino vote, right? i mean that's the first -- >> but that doesn't predict what the outcome is going to be. >> yes, yes. >> that's what i'm saying. >> yes. >> you can look at the hispanic share. >> it doesn't tell you. >> and that doesn't tell you how it's going to tu