of inmates coming through. you could have a murderer next to a guy who is in for shoplifting. on our first day of filming extended stay inside orange county jail in california, we covered the trauma of a young man s first day in jail. i m in the orange county jail. i m like in a room with no windows, no nothing. nobody i don t know what s going on. i don t know. when we met 20-year-old richard ruiz, he had already completed the booking process and his first court arraignment and was now engaged in another jailhouse ritual, the first call home. so i m just sitting in a room. i don t know if it s light or daylight. i lose track of time. i get woken up by all of the slamming doors and stuff. like i don t know what s going on in here. i skip all meals because i don t want to eat. ruiz had been arrested 48 hours earlier for the first time
honestly, there s probably about $80 worth of pills in my car and it s not worth this. what are you thinking about? there s so much more than this. just to know that you re stuck somewhere and you have no clue what s going on. in a 10 foot by 10 foot room with no windows. not knowing if it s dark, light outside, it s nothing to look forward to. not only is he a new booking, he s somebody with in criminal experience. he hasn t been here before and then he s been removed from general population so he has nobody to talk to. he can t communicate with anybody. so of course he is scared. ruiz had been segregated from other inmates due to the jewelry implants in his face. they re called dermal implants. pretty much what they do is they
just hours before he would answer to the judge. ruiz used his time in isolation to write a letter to his girlfriend who he had not spoken to since his arrest. baby i m sorry for not picking you up at work. i was in a police car at the time. i hope you re there when i get out. the only thing i can dream or think about is all the right things i m going to do when i get out. this is too hard for me right now. to be continued. okay. we re back in session, back on the record. on case number 10-sf-0604, people versus richard edward ruiz. mr. ruiz is richard edward ruiz jr. your true name? yes. the following day it s preliminary court hearing ruiz was charged with felony possession of narcotics which could carry a lengthy sentence behind bars.
was going to be in the courtroom. just knowing, some way, i didn t hurt myself, i hurt people that were close, and just they are still supportive. it hurts. the couple would soon be reunited after ruiz posted bond and was released. he pled guilty at a later court hearing and was sentenced to three years probation. do you understand that? yes. but the memory of his first experience in jail will likely last a lifetime. everybody learns the hard way. this is my first time learning. coming up i ve accepted the fact that a potential outcome of trial could be the death sentence. we encounter an iraq war veteran accused of murder inside phoenix s maricopa county jail.
get a needle, they make a pocket in your face, they push around to make it hollow and they put a plate inside the slit. because those piercings, according to him, are irremovable, we don t know that and we don t know what those piercings are capable, once they re taken out they could contain contraband. they could be used as a weapon, could be against himself, could be against staff or even fellow inmates. i have another one on the back of my neck. it s called a surface staple. as you can see, there s a bar through my neck and there s two flat head screwdriver parts to it. basically, for mr. ruiz, for him it s been a good thing being isolated because he won t be exposed to a general population setting. he won t be exposed to gang politics. he won t be exposed to inmate pressures. so for mr. ruiz, it might have been a saving grace for him that he actually had piercings and that he was removed from general population so he doesn t have to answer any of those questions. well, as y