daniel spitz is the medical examiner for macomb and st.laire counties, just north of detroit, michigan. investigators from his office attend every death scene in the county occurring outside a hospital, hospice, or nursing home. his job, simply stated, to perform autopsies and figure out why people died. >> we, obviously, don't like surprises. so, we send an investigator to basically make sure the death is what it seems to be. and many times that allows us to comfortably release the body to the family, to the funeral home, and other times it prompts an investigation that involved the body coming into the medical examiner's office and an autopsy being done. >> he's been fascinated with this subspecialty of medicine since childhood. his father, dr. werner spitz, is one of the country's best-known forensic pathologists. after graduating from medical school in 1995, he did six more years of training in anatomic, clinical and forensic pathology. >> it's not a field that attracts huge numbers of people. it's not billed as being glamorous like yo

bye. >> saturday afternoon, macomb county, michigan, just north of detroit. this investigator from the macomb county medical examiner's office is on her way to a house where a man is discovered dead. >> this is a 50-year-old who was found by his father. he is known to be a heavy drinker. and he is found naked, appears to be a lot of blood at the scene and it sounds like his head is thrown into a wall. >> renee is one of six investigators who work for the macomb county investigator dr. daniel spitz. >> they work around the clock, going to scenes, working with the police, basically being the eyes and ears for the office and telling the story of the deceased person. >> it isn't the law that requires investigators to show up at death scenes. it's dr. spitz's rule implemented when he was appointed in 2004. prior to that investigators didn't have to physically attend death scenes making it possible in one instance to nearly miss a case of foul play. >> it was a concern of mine when i came that that was something i wanted to avoid, obviously. this is not the role of

the county executive wayne county, the county executive of oakland county and county executive of macomb county have all come together and agreed on a solution. >> rate increases would be capped at 4% over the next decades and includes $4.5 million to help people pay bills. water became a symbol of the crisis this summer as the city shut off water to people who hadn't paid their bills. >> they want to be forgiven for their debt, okay, and when they pay their debt, it's going to be pennies on the dollar. but we don't get the same break that they get. >> reporter: detroit is swamped in $18 billion of red ink. it's tax base has been eroded over the years as industry left and so did people. population is now down to 700,000 from 2 million at its peak. the city and the country is watching court because this bankruptcy ruling will set precedence. how can ailing cities deal with financial trouble. can workers and pensioning protected as the court decides winners and losers. >> the bankruptcy hearings and the future of detroit this time on inside story, there's already the outline of a final set

in a funeral parade led by general macomb and commodore mcdonough they slowly came here to riversidecemetery just outside of downtown. they marchedums, slowly and the liberally here to the ground -- slowly and del iberately. the lead cortage carry the body of royal navy captain commodore george downey. and he's buried here. at riverside cemetery. cortage were not just royal navy sailors. dead,ere british army american sailors who had died, as well as british sailors who had died. 200 of them were taken to crab island because it was close to where the ships were being kept. another 200 or more were brought here to riverside cemetery and buried. lieutenant peter gamble, he was the officer whose head was severed, threw across the deck and struck mcdonough. stansberry,ohn september 11, 1814, battle of plattsburgh. he was an officer on board the eagle and was killed in action. there is captain -- he's british . 76 regiment. british army. career in studying history, i had never heard of the battle of plattsburgh. so i was intrigued. the more i read, it more it drew me in. and what it playe

so we have to macombs, we have to solve problems, make arguments, higher orderer skills which is what the p test tries to do. so this test is interesting. it's a test i'll be referring to i looked at other test data as well, and you obviously want to look at metrics like high school graduation, college attainment. but this test i found to be compelling because we don't actually know what jobs will be available in 20 or 30 years. but we do know that those skills, those abilities to solve problems to make judgments to make arguments-will be valuable. so i took the psi test to see what that was all about because it seemed, again, the cynic in me didn't believe it was possible to assess critical thinking. i still think it's hard. but i did find the test to be far smarter than any standardized test i'd ever taken, for whatever that's worth. i routinely realized there was not right answer and i had to write out my answer and make the case, and i would get different points depending on how cogent and compelling my argument was, which is a lot like my actual life, my actual work. so i was imp

. >> reporter: macomb county, michigan declared a health emergency.o push a ban on cloud 9. sabrina was there. >> and he tells me that it is still continuing at school. he says in the stall, mom, in the stalls. and it also is happening on the buses. >> reporter: most of all, she is trying to save her son. >> i can't lose my son to some crazy, stupid liquid that is being sold by people that don't even realize what they're doing to families. >> i love you. >> i love you too. >> john yang, nbc knew, fraser, michigan. >>> coming up next, theçó 49ers trying to avoid lose three straight for the first time under jim harbaugh. how his running back build a the team out. >>> plus, it was a sunny sunday for the a's. find out how one athletic made his mom's birthday wish come true on the final game of the season. >>> oh, what a day for bay area sports. great results. >> very, very true with all the details right now. brodie brazil joining us from comcast sportsnet. >> the final sunday of september was very busy. in fact, play-off baseball getting sorted out in ju

. >> now it's up to the macomb county medical examiner to figure it out. >> let us see what's in hisead. holy cow. dead men do tell tales as they