NM PRISON RIOT Ep. 6 | “For What It’s Worth”

State police and city police SWAT teams enter Penitentiary New Mexico to retake the facility. The destruction is shocking. Multiple fires burn out of control, and everything is trashed. Then they start finding dead bodies. All experienced extreme trauma. Some will take weeks to identify. The Santa Fe city police SWAT team is the first to see the horror of Cellblock 4. In the aftermath, prison officials and state legislators struggle to improve and reform a system that is badly broken. In the ensuing years, there are no riots, but few significant changes. Thanks to our sponsor, Quince! Use this link for Free Shipping and 365-day returns: Quince.com/infamousamerica Join Black Barre l+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com or @blackbarrelmedia on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:12Speaker 00

  El primer llamado telefónico de un guardado a un oficial de la cárcel ocurrió 20 minutos después del rioto, a las 2 de la tarde del sábado, el 2 de febrero de 1980. El oficial y su esposa comenzaron a llamar a todos los demás. En minutos, todos los personajes más altos de la cárcel sabían sobre el rioto, como lo sabía el gobernador, la policía estatal, la policía de la ciudad de Santa Fe, el guardia nacional y varios departamentos de fuego. En 15 minutos de aprendizaje del rioto, el guardia Jerry Griffin y el deputado guardia de programas, Robert Montoya, estaban discutiendo la idea de estorbar la cárcel para recuperar el control. Ambos hombres vivían en casas en los terrenos de la cárcel y estaban en la puerta de entrada al día 2:15.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  En ese momento, la policía estatal y los oficiales de la policía de la ciudad comenzaron a llegar. Dentro de la cárcel, los riotos ya habían tomado el control de toda la instalación y comenzaban a desbloquear las celdas en el bloque 3. Además, la unidad psicológica estaba en fuego. 15 minutos después, el deputado guardia Montoya recibió la primera comunicación de los riotos que exigían reuniones con el gobernador y los medios. Los riotos dijeron que matarían a los hostages si sus exigencias no se cumplieran. Incluso si Griffin y Montoya tuvieron el poder de la gente, sabían que era imposible atacar la cárcel. Tenían que asumir que los intrépides habían encontrado el equipo de riotos, que estaba bloqueado en el sótano del edificio principal.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Griffin y Montoya enfrentaron una situación sin precedentes. Cientos de intrépides se enojaron a través de la cárcel, armados con bolas, gas lacrimógeno y armas cocineras en una mezcla de espacios confinados, con fuego quemando y quién sabía qué más, y sin ninguna idea dónde estaban ubicados los hostages. No, retomar la cárcel no iba a pasar, ni en la oscuridad del día previo del sábado.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  El ataque casi ocurrió el sábado por la tarde, cuando los funcionarios de la cárcel escucharon un informe, ya sea por radio o de intrépides escapados, de que cuatro hostages habían muerto. El gobernador Bruce King autorizó el ataque, pero luego los funcionarios aprendieron que el informe era incorrecto. Ninguno de los hostages había muerto. La mayoría estuvo herido y todos sabían que los hostages estaban experimentando traumas continuos, pero las negociaciones estaban realizando progreso constante. Uno por uno, los hostages fueron liberados o escapados a lo largo del sábado. Pero incluso si no hubo escapadas y no hubo liberación de los hostages, todavía existían grandes preocupaciones con el ataque. Probablemente el mayor fue la habilidad de moverse dentro de la cárcel.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Incluso si los atacantes sabían exactamente dónde estaban todos los hostages, lo que no hicieron, e incluso si tenían una llave para cada puerta y puerta de la cárcel, lo que no hicieron, no había garantía de que las llaves funcionaran y que pudieran moverse libremente a lo largo de la cárcel. Después de horas de fuego y destrucción, nadie sabía cómo se veía la cárcel en el interior. Pero aprendieron casi inmediatamente después de entrar en la puerta de entrada a las 1:30 el domingo por la tarde. La policía estatal de Nuevo México tenía dos equipos de SWAT, un equipo de 12 hombres del norte y un equipo de 10 hombres del sur. Ambos equipos estaban en la cárcel al final del sábado por la noche. El domingo por la tarde, entraron en la cárcel como una unidad de 22 hombres.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Los guardias nacionales se estacionaron en el patio entre los edificios y la pared para controlar la multitud, pero el SWAT ocupó el trabajo sucio dentro. El equipo de SWAT de la policía estatal encontró a dos riotos con espadas justo dentro de la entrada principal del edificio de administración y los enviaron fuera a los guardias. Luego, el equipo de SWAT recibió la sensación de los obstáculos que habría enfrentado el otro tarde, o peor aún, a las 4 de la mañana, cuando los funcionarios consideraron brevemente un ataque nocturno. Para moverse a través de los oficiales de administración para llegar al centro de control, los oficiales tuvieron que correr a través de dos agujeros que los intrépides habían aplastado en las paredes de plástico reforzadas de acero.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Los agujeros en las paredes habían sido necesarios porque el fuego había dañado seriamente algunas de las puertas y puertas, y el agua había calentado los paneles electrónicos que operaban otras puertas y puertas. Un grupo de aproximadamente 20 civiles, un combino de funcionarios de la cárcel y legisladores estatales, siguió al equipo de SWAT al interior del edificio. Larry Flood, el oficial de inteligencia en la cárcel que había llamado una reunión de todos los brazos dos días antes del rioto para advertir de un recogimiento de hostages, trató de describir sus primeros pasos en la cárcel durante una entrevista para un documental BBC 20 años después. Tan pronto como entramos en el lobby principal, podíamos ver la destrucción total.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Había agua en el piso de aproximadamente un pie profundo, agua desagradable, con todo tipo de basura flotando en el agua, pastillas, capsulas, sirenas y basura. Se estancó hasta el cielo. El equipo de SWAT de la policía estatal comenzó a encontrar cuerpos muertos cerca del centro de control.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Desde Black Barrel Media, esto es Infamous America. Soy tu anfitrión Chris Wimmer y en este temporada estamos contando la historia de seis episodios de la riota más violenta de la historia de la cárcel estadounidense, la subida en el penitenciario Nuevo México en febrero de 1980. Este es el episodio seis, por lo que vale.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Los dos objetivos principales para los equipos de SWAT fueron encontrar y liberar a todos los intrépides atrapados y rescatar a los tres empleados de la cárcel que todavía estaban en el edificio. El técnico de infirmería había logrado bloquearse en una parte de la unidad hospitalaria y quedó seguro a lo largo del rioto. Dos guardas, Valentin Martinez y Antonio Vehil, corrieron las 36 horas de la subida en un espacio de cuello próximo a la cárcel de la cárcel de ejecución en el sótano del bloque 5. Más allá de esos objetivos, todos los que entraron se les dijo que preservaran lo más evidente posible. Cada pulgada de los cientos de miles de metros cuadrados del complejo de la cárcel era una escena de crimen.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  Preservación sería más fácil dicho que hecho, especialmente cuando los civiles más tempranos que entraron vieron la experiencia como más de una atracción turista morbida que una escena de crimen. Cuando el equipo de SWAT llegó al centro de control y encontró los primeros cuerpos muertos, los oficiales dijeron a los civiles que regresaran. Los oficiales de SWAT vieron la ventana de vidrio aplastada del centro de control, probablemente sin darse cuenta de su significancia más allá de un punto de entrada para los riotos. El nuevo vidrio protector había instalado dos semanas antes del rioto, y aunque los fabricantes y los inspectores solo garantizaron una cantidad relativamente mínima de resistencia de balas, muchos de los guardias creyeron que era indestructible.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Llevó a los riotos solo tres golpes de un extinguisher de fuego de mano roja para aplastar el vidrio. Ahora, los oficiales corrieron a través del desgarrado vidrio para entrar al centro de control y inmediatamente pasaron a un cuerpo muerto en el proceso.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  El cuerpo que no notaron en el agua y la basura fue uno de los seis intrépides de la dormitorio F1 que murieron en el rioto. Uno de los otros dos cuerpos cerca del centro de control también era un intrépido de F1. Uno había sido golpeado, ambos habían sido matados. El tercero era uno de los 12 víctimas de los equipos de muerte que arrasaron el bloque 4. Después de descubrir los cuerpos, un capitán de la policía estatal ordenó al equipo de crimen de la policía estatal entrar en la cárcel y comenzar el trabajo de fotografiar los cuerpos y recopilar evidencia. Cuando los agentes del laboratorio de crimen terminaron, los guardias nacionales retirarían los cuerpos. En el centro de control, el equipo de SWAT de la policía estatal de 22 hombres se dividía en equipos más pequeños

• 8:18Speaker 00

  para comenzar a verificar las otras áreas del wing de administración y para moverse al wing sur. En el wing sur era donde los policías casi tuvieron su primer accidente de fuego amistoso. Al mismo tiempo que el equipo de SWAT de la policía estatal estaba entrando en la cárcel a través de la puerta de entrada y moviéndose al wing administrativo, el equipo de SWAT de la ciudad de Santa Fe estaba supuesto a entrar en la cárcel a través del bloque 5 y correr a través del wing norte. De las muchas cosas que continuaban mal, ese fue uno de ellos. El equipo de Santa Fe entró al patio a través de una puerta cerca del bloque 4. Pasaron por el bloque 4 al bloque 5 y trataron de entrar a través del sótano. El equipo de la ciudad tenía un empleado de corrección, Gene Long, con él.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  Gene tenía una serie de llaves, pero como el equipo de SWAT rápidamente aprendió, su serie no estaba completa. No pudieron desbloquear la puerta para el bloque 5, así que retrocedieron al bloque 4. pudieron desbloquear una puerta externa para el bloque 4, pero tan pronto como entraron dentro, se enfrentaron a una puerta de seguridad bloqueada a la que Gene no tenía una llave. Retróceron del bloque 4 y comenzaron este recorrido algo largo al wing administrativo en el centro del complejo. Pasaron por el bloque 4, luego pasaron por el bloque 3, luego por la unidad hospitalaria hasta que llegaron al edificio más grande de la instalación, la cocina. En la parte de atrás de la cocina, finalmente encontraron un punto de entrada a través de un puerto de carga.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Dentro de la instalación de la cocina, el equipo de 12 hombres se dividía en dos equipos de seis hombres. Un equipo bajó al sótano para ver la sala de lavado, la planta de mantenimiento y las tiendas de reparación. Los investigadores luego aprenderían que los riotos encontraron el primer de tres bombas de fuego en la tienda de limpieza y se puso peligrosamente altos en los gases de pintura y glúenes en la tienda de reparación de zapatos. En la cocina por encima de las tiendas, los otros equipos sorprendieron a dos intrépides a los que enviaron fuera a los guardias nacionales. Cuando completaron su caza de la cocina y se movieron al área de comidas y luego al corredor que llevaba al wing sur, corrieron a los miembros del equipo de SWAT estatal.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  The state police SWAT team nearly shot the Santa Fe city SWAT team. The state police team expected the city team to be working its way through North Wing. When half of the city team showed up in the corridor near South Wing, state officers thought the city officers were inmates who had stolen riot gear from the prison. City officers quickly identified themselves to avoid a friendly fire accident, but then they had another problem. Prison employee Jean Long, who was in civilian clothes, was with the city squad. The assault plan required him to wear a white armband over his clothing so officers could immediately identify him as a good guy. Jean wasn't wearing the armband,

• 11:16Speaker 00

  and city officers had a hard time convincing the state officers that Jean was on their team. When the state officers finally believed Jean was not a threat, they finished sweeping the Admin Wing and South Wing. They found dead bodies in the officers' mess hall, the Catholic chapel, and the gymnasium. The gym was still smoldering, and officers could not enter, but they could see charred bodies inside. They also found the remains of an unknown number of burned bodies in the corridor outside the gym. When they found the body in the Catholic chapel, they noted with interest that the chapel was the only room in the Admin Wing that had not been destroyed. Three dead bodies lay in entrances to dormitories.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  From South Wing, the teams moved back north. One of the state police squads joined the entire city SWAT team to begin clearing North Wing. In North Wing, they received their second surprise from friendly forces, and they became the first to view the unparalleled violence in the cell blocks.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Nine inmates from Dormitory C1 were stuck on the second floor of the Psychological Unit in North Wing. The Psychological Unit had been burning for 36 hours, and the inmates were signaling to the outside that they needed help. Santa Fe County Sheriff's deputies decided to break into the unit to help the inmates. The deputies made it inside, rescued the nine inmates, and then decided to move to the next building up the corridor, Cell House 6. The deputies were in the process of moving out 20 to 25 inmates from Cell House 6 when the SWAT officers arrived. The SWAT officers mistook the deputies for inmates and ordered them to raise their hands. During some tense moments, they sorted out the confusion

• 13:07Speaker 00

  and narrowly avoided a second possible friendly fire accident. With Cell House 6 clear, the combined SWAT officers and sheriff's deputies moved across the hall to Cell Block 3. They released eight live inmates from their cells, found three more live inmates scattered throughout the unit, and discovered the first two of three dead bodies in the cell block. After Cell Block 3, the SWAT squads moved separately through all the units in North Wing to cover ground more quickly. A squad went into the basement of Cell Block 5 and rescued officers Valentin Martinez and Antonio Vehil from their crawl space next to the gas chamber. Squads went into the hospital unit and freed infirmary technician Ross Mays

• 13:52Speaker 00

  and the seven inmates with whom he had sweated out the storm. The Santa Fe city SWAT team ended up being the group who went into Cell Block 4. They were initiated at the entrance, where the tortured and mutilated bodies of Mario Uriosté and Larry Smith were displayed. On one side of the basement of the unit, they found a cluster of four bodies. On the other side, they found another group of four. In the tiers, they found a body hanging from a sheet tied to a railing. They found the charred remains of an inmate who had been burned to death in his cell. And they found three or four lucky souls who were still alive and trapped in their cells. They released the inmates and escorted them outside.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  The city SWAT team moved across the hall to Cell Block 5, where they discovered one last rioter who was the final holdout. They found the man sharpening a knife. When he saw the armed and armored SWAT officers, he dropped the knife and said, "I guess I won't be needing this anymore."

• 14:58Speaker 00

  The sweep of the prison took two hours, and it was complete by 3:30 Sunday afternoon. Then, 20 minutes later, a SWAT team had to go back into the prison to round up inmates who had sneaked into the basement of one of the cell blocks. About 10 minutes after that, at 4 o'clock, fights broke out between inmates and National Guardsmen in the yard. Friends and family members of inmates started loudly picketing at the road entrance to the prison, about a quarter of a mile away from the facility. They were angry about the lack of information from prison officials. When information was available, it was limited and often confusing. But that was due in large part to the Herculean effort underway by prison officials

• 15:40Speaker 00

  to determine the status of all 1,157 inmates. 100 to 200 were being treated in area hospitals or in the medical tent at the prison for injuries or drug overdoses.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  The death toll in the immediate aftermath was impossible to determine. Some bodies had been so badly mangled or burned that officials would need to bring in forensic anthropologists to help the process. Rioters had destroyed nearly all of the prison records in the facility. They intentionally set fire to the paper files in the records room, the warden's office, and the Psychological Unit, and they did their work well. As soon as the SWAT team secured the prison, firefighters rushed in to begin putting out the flames, but the damage was done. And while firefighters worked, the urgent task before prison officials was immense to the point of being mind-boggling.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Officials needed to interview as many inmates as possible, not only to build a picture of the uprising, but to provide information to friends and family members. At the same time, officials faced impossible choices. They needed to clean the prison and preserve it as a crime scene. Adding to the list of impossible things, it was impossible to fully do both. They had to clean it fast because they had roughly 800 inmates standing in the cold who needed to be rehoused. Officials had no choice but to split the difference. Crime scene preservation would be a priority in areas which were unusable because of substantial damage. Everywhere else had to be cleaned and restored as fast as possible.

• 17:22Speaker 00

  The maximum-security cell blocks were locked off and preserved. Most of the floors of the dormitories and the medium-security cell houses would be usable once they were cleaned. Many were strewn with debris and smeared with blood, so the cleanup operation began immediately. With all three maximum-security cell blocks out of commission, New Mexico prison officials rapidly coordinated with federal prison officials to move roughly 350 inmates to federal prisons. Like everything, the process was messy. Some inmates were transferred to Colorado and Arizona, only to be transferred back to New Mexico a couple days later and exchanged for other inmates. Officials from Oklahoma showed up to collect transfers,

• 18:07Speaker 00

  only to find out the inmates weren't ready to go because of the exhaustive effort to conduct interviews and preserve evidence for criminal prosecutions related to the riot. Over the next four days, corrections employees, state policemen, and National Guardsmen completed the gargantuan task of making portions of the prison temporarily livable. They moved 496 inmates back into Penitentiary New Mexico. They sent 348 to federal prisons, 122 to state prisons in other states, 77 to county jails, and an ever-changing tally to hospitals. There were a few miscellaneous inmates who fell into other categories. The official death toll stood at 33 victims.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  The remaining 17 inmates were held in custody pending court appearances for crimes. Most of those 17 were the rioters who were believed to be members of the death squads who systematically tortured and killed many of the 33 victims. But prosecutors were about to learn that they were in a situation which would have been recognizable to lawyers in New York, for example, who had to deal with mafia crimes. Everyone knew who did it, but no one would talk, and there was no way to prove it.

• 19:32Speaker 01

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• 19:58Speaker 00

  A Santa Fe County grand jury handed down the first four murder indictments related to the uprising on November 6, 1980, nine months after the riot. It would not have surprised anyone at the prison to learn that Michael Colby, 24 years old, was on the list of inmates who were charged with murder. Colby was initially sent to Penitentiary New Mexico at the age of 18 for aggravated battery and robbery. And then, the year before the riot, he was convicted of beating a prisoner to death with a baseball bat in the weight room. He received a life sentence for the murder conviction. Two months before the riot, he was charged with helping inmates escape from the prison. And then, after rioters released him from his cell in Cell Block 3, he was charged,

• 20:43Speaker 00

  along with three other rioters, with the torture and murder of Larry Smith, whose body was found by the Santa Fe City SWAT team at the entrance to Cell Block 4. 24 hours after Colby allegedly participated in the murder of Larry Smith, Colby was talking to TV cameras in the yard shortly before the uprising ended. Five more indictments followed the initial batch of four, but few resulted in trials or convictions. Evidence was thin, and eyewitnesses refused to testify or were unreliable. Prosecutors agreed to a guilty plea of second-degree murder for an inmate in exchange for testifying against another inmate.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  In September 1981, prosecutors used the testimony of the first inmate to help secure a murder conviction against the second inmate. It was their first conviction at trial for a murder committed during the riot, though the small measure of justice provided little comfort to friends and family members of the victim. The recovery process for the guards who were in the prison during the riot was longer and slower than the legal process. Some required weeks or months of hospitalization for physical and mental injuries. Some, when they were released, retreated from society and lived quiet, isolated existences.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  KOAT, Channel 7 News in Santa Fe, did a special report on the one-year anniversary of the riot. The report cited a guard who had become so petrified of sharp objects that his family stopped using knives and forks. They ate every meal with spoons. Many of the guards saw psychiatrists or psychologists for years. Most had nightmares for years. None returned to work at the prison, and most never set foot on the prison grounds again. Some did go back, mostly as an attempt to heal. Officer Michael Schmidt, one of the first four guards captured in dormitory E2, decided to visit the prison two years after the riot, in an effort to dispel the nightmares which plagued him every night.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  He had been badly beaten and stabbed, and he was released by the rioters after 22 hours as a hostage. Officer Larry Mendoza, one of the three guards who was captured in the basement of Cell Block 3, went back to the prison 20 years later with a documentary film crew to try to explain the 36 hours of the uprising. Mendoza was held hostage the longest, but he was also one of the only three guards who were not physically harmed by the rioters. That didn't make it any easier to try to make a film crew understand what it was like to see a rioter hold a decapitated head and tell him he would be next. And the officers who were hostages were not alone in their stance to stay away from the prison.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  They were the obvious ones, but most of the rest of the guards on staff refused to go back immediately after the riot. It came as no surprise that no one felt safe, not the guards, not the inmates, not the administrative workers. Prison officials had to address a list of 22 grievances from employees before day shift guards would report for duty. And even when they did, the overall staffing problem was worse than before. For two and a half months after the inmates were rehoused in the prison, state police officers had to act as prison guards. New Mexico lawmakers were horrified to learn that the officers carried guns in the prison for the first six weeks, as if the officers thought they were on normal patrols instead

• 24:18Speaker 00

  of walking the halls of a maximum-security prison which had just suffered the most violent riot in American history. And it was no picnic for the inmates either. Because so much of the facility had been damaged, things kept breaking inside the prison. Water was the biggest problem, and the National Guard delivered two 400-gallon water trailers on Sunday evening, February 3, the day that most of the inmates were rehoused in the prison. Two days later, on Tuesday, inmates in Cell Houses 1 and 2 set fires in their units to protest the lack of drinking water and toilet facilities. Inmates in Cell House 6, which had become the maximum-security unit with all three of the cell blocks out of order, flooded their cells in protest.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  The first few months after the riot, as expected, were rough on everyone. And the problems at the Penitentiary of New Mexico never really stopped. Within 48 hours of the end of the uprising, there were fires and floods in the three cellhouses. On April 10, 1980, nine weeks after the uprising, two inmates were beaten and two were stabbed in Cell House 6. Five days later, guards had to use tear gas to stop two disturbances in Cell House 6. Four inmates were moved to the dreaded isolation cells in the basement of Cell Block 3.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Six days after tear gas was used in Cell House 6, inmates started a general food and work strike throughout the prison. It only lasted a day, but just two months after the uprising, it felt like the prison was still out of control. And it turned out, it wasn't just limited to Penitentiary New Mexico. At the state prison in Florence, Arizona, where nine inmates from PNM had been transferred, one of the nine stabbed another. Three days later, on April 28, Jerry Griffin was transferred from the warden's position to another position in the Department of Corrections. He had been warden for one year, and he was the fifth warden at the prison in the past 10 years.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  That same day, a convicted kidnapper rapist escaped the prison, and four inmates who had been transferred to Curry County after the uprising escaped the county jail. All of that was in April 1980. By May 1, 28 corrections officers had resigned from the prison. It was a major blow to the facility, but understandable. That same day, guards in Cell House 6 discovered a plan to escape when they touched the iron bars on a couple of the windows. The bars fell into their hands, and it was immediately clear that inmates had sawed through the bars and were about a half step away from breaking out.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  That trend would continue for years. On December 9, 1980, Harvey Winans became the new warden of the Penitentiary of New Mexico. He brought 27 years of corrections experience to the job, but his first year at PNM didn't fare much better than Jerry Griffin's. There was no uprising, thankfully, but there was plenty of violence and unrest. And Warden Winans suffered a notorious distinction that Warden Griffin did not, even with the horrendous events of the hostage takeover of February 1980. Warden Winans lost officers on duty.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  On February 26, 1981, one year and three weeks after the riot, Corrections Officer Louis Jewett tried to save inmate Bobby Garcia, who was being attacked by two other inmates. The attackers stabbed Garcia and Officer Jewett. Garcia died at the prison. Louis Jewett, 38 years old, died at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe five weeks later, on April 4. On April 6, 1981, inmates carried out a retaliatory killing for a murder committed during the riot. Four prisoners were burned to death during the uprising, and inmates believed, or knew, that Jesus Jose Antunes was responsible for one of them.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Antunes was shanked with weapons described as ice pick-like in the maximum-security exercise yard. He died shortly after the attack. A prison official said to the local news media, "It was just a quick disturbance and the guards were there." But unfortunately, the inmate was dead. Two months later, on August 30, the worst encounter since the uprising happened, and one aspect was scarier than the events of the riot. At 1:30 in the morning, prison guard Gerald McGee and two other guards were locking down Cell House 6. Five inmates were planning to escape, and it seemed the guards interrupted the attempt. Two of the inmates were armed with pistols, and two more had homemade knives.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  The inmates stabbed Officer McGee and held the other two guards hostage during what turned out to be a four-hour standoff after the escape was foiled. At 5 o'clock in the morning, the inmates surrendered. The two hostages were released unharmed, but 35-year-old Gerald McGee, who had been on the job for one year, died of his stab wounds. Warden Winans said later he was not sure how the inmates acquired a 38-caliber gun, a 32-caliber gun, and ammunition for both. Three years later, in June 1984, an inmate with a history of escapes simply walked out of the front door of the prison, according to his own account. He used the old Alcatraz trick of making a dummy of himself, which he placed under

• 29:58Speaker 00

  the blanket in his bed to make it look like he was sleeping. He somehow obtained civilian clothes and put them on under his prison uniform. Then, when the time was right, he quickly stripped off his prison uniform and navigated his way outside in a plaid shirt, tan pants, and a baseball cap. He was caught several hours later. By then, the prison was well into its transition phase. In 1985, Penitentiary New Mexico opened its new Level 5 Supermax Unit, the second Supermax Unit in the country. Over the next 13 years, the prison phased out the old facilities until the buildings known as the Old Main finally closed in 1998.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  The buildings are now available for tours and for use as movie sets. Next time on Infamous America, it's a three-episode miniseries which I hope will feature some extra bells and whistles. There's still a lot of work to do, so we'll see how it turns out, but I hope it will be a new and different experiment.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  That's next time on Infamous America. To binge all the episodes of a new season and to listen to every episode of the podcast with no commercials, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, or sign up through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. This series was researched and written by me, Chris Wimmer. Original music by Rob Valier. Thanks for listening.