(CNN) - On shaky, grainy video recordings, a group of men show off a stash of pills, pop open Budweiser tall boys and shoot dice for stacks of cash. One injects what appears to be heroin; another displays a large-caliber pistol, ejecting four bullets from the chamber to show that it's loaded.
Here's the punchline: These guys are already in jail.
The scenes were captured in 2009 on a camera smuggled into the House of Detention in New Orleans, a decrepit lockup pressed back into service after Hurricane Katrina. The video's release during a federal court hearing this week sparked a new demand by the city's mayor for the federal government to take over the Orleans Parish prison system and a round of I-told-you-sos by advocates for the inmates held there.
On "Early Start" this morning, CNN's Sara Ganim reports on the video and the potential fallout for officials.