. >> carlos cervantes was first brought to this prison in 1975. >> there was a lot of harshness as far as punishment. back then, you had a hall which they called the hold which was a prison cell with nothing but a hole in the middle, and they would throw you in there buck naked. >> tired of the overcrowding and abuse inside the prison, inmates reached their boiling point on february 2nd, 1980. what ensued was one of the deadliest prison riots in u.s. history. inmate carlos cervantes saw it all happen. >> it was like a bomb exploding, just went off and the whole prison system was taken over, the whole facility. >> for 36 hours, the riot raged out of control. finally, when national guardsmen entered the facility, they found the interior in ruins. 8 officers and over 100 inmates were injured. 33 prisoners were dead. cellblock four is where rampaging inmates took their revenge on informers held in protective custody. >> a lot of people that were considered rats and so on and so forth were housed here. one of the inmates was actually brutally burned, and down here on the floor is the area w