Author Roger Morris wrote that "the riot was a predictable incident based on an assessment of prison conditions.

These conditions created strong feelings of deprivation and discontent in the inmate population that would increasingly lead to violence and disorder.

[6] The report said that retribution for snitching led to an increased incidence of inmate-on-inmate violence at the prison in the late 1970s.

In an attempt to subdue the protestors, Deputy Warden Robert Montoya authorized the use of tear gas against the striking prisoners.

As they exited the dormitory coughing from the gas, “they were stripped naked and run nearly a hundred yards down the central corridor through a gauntlet of officials who beat them with ubiquitous ax handles.

Called 'the night of the ax handles', the incident was corroborated by several eyewitnesses, including some officials themselves, and resulted in serious injuries as well as a federal lawsuit, still pending in 1982, naming deputy warden [Montoya] and a senior guard captain among the assailants".

The last time the US District Court grand jury ordered improvements was in November 1979, two months before the riot.

There have been conflicting reports about the inmate population at the time of the riot and the official capacity of the prison that weekend.

Inmate Gary Nelson, assigned to E2 bunk 2, heard the plan to jump the guards if they did not lock the door to the dorm during the 1:00 a.m.

Because of overcrowding, the two officers went down two sides of a center aisle consisting of single beds the length of the dorm.

On Saturday morning at 1:40 a.m., February 2, 1980, on cue, two prisoners in southside Dormitory E2 overpowered the officer before he closed the door.

The other gang was loosely labeled the Aryan Brotherhood and was led by some of the most dangerous inmates (who by this time had been released from segregation in Cell Block 3).

Cell Block 4 also housed inmates who were mentally ill, convicted of sex crimes, or otherwise vulnerable, and held a total of 96 prisoners.

It was going to take hours to cut through the bars to enter the cell block, so several inmates left to raid the records office to look for files that would identify who the informers were.

Before sunrise Friday, rioters with walkie-talkies began detailing their plans to harm those in Cell Block 4 to prison officials over the radio, but no action was taken.

[24] Locked in their cells, the segregated prisoners called to the State Police outside just beyond the fence, pleading for them to save them.

There had better be a meeting with the governor, the news media and (Deputy Secretary of Corrections and former warden Felix) Rodriguez.”[29] "…the future course of the uprising will frequently be aimless and wild, with shifting and uncertain leadership, and often politics will be an apparent afterthought.

The inmate on the radio knows well…it is King and Rodriguez who will decide the fate of any reform, and they will be held accountable - if at all – by the media.”[30] About thirty minutes after the riot began, Warden Jerry Griffin joined Deputy Warden Robert Montoya and Superintendent of Correctional Security Emanuel Koroneos at the gatehouse beneath Tower 1.

[31] Montoya contacted inmates at about 2:30 a.m. to initiate negotiations, first using a two-way radio in his car, then a hand set from the gate house.

Montoya's earliest contact was with an inmate who had been involved with the initial takeover in Dorm E2 and apparently had control of the shift captain throughout the riot.

When Lonnie Duran was accepted by Rodriguez as one of the four inmate spokesmen, the inmates repeated eleven demands from the Duran Consent Decree concerned with basic prison conditions including overcrowding, use of solitary confinement, protesting the loss of educational services, and elimination of programs.

Ray Powell of Albuquerque chaired a panel named by Governor Bruce King and Jeff Bingaman, the New Mexico Attorney General, to assist in the investigation.

[1][page needed] In comparison, the inmate population at the Penitentiary of New Mexico during this time was 49% Hispanic, 38% White, 10% Black, and 3% Indigenous.

[38] Author Roger Morris suggests the death toll may have been higher, as a number of bodies were incinerated or dismembered during the course of the mayhem.

Nationally known criminal lawyer William L. Summers led the defense team in defending dozens of inmates charged in the aftermath.

In 1982, Summers received the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Robert C. Heeney award for his work in defending the inmates prosecuted with regard to the riot.

[citation needed] Before and after the riots, Governor King's administration resisted attempts to reform the prison.

Even though his case was supported by the U.S. District Court, actual reforms were held up by negotiations for almost two decades.

The prison reform work from the Duran case developed the modern correctional system in New Mexico.

[citation needed] In 1989, the Bay Area thrash band Exodus memorialized the riot in "The Last Act of Defiance", the lead-off track of the album Fabulous Disaster.