THERE'S A KILLER ON THE ROAD & OTHER PRISON ESCAPES

[HairOfTheDog]

NEW MEXICO


Joseph Cruz, 32, (left) is a convicted murderer. Lionel Clah, 29, (right) is a convicted armed robber who shot at a police officer in northern New Mexico.

Both convicts were shackled when they managed to escape from a prison transport van on Wednesday night. The van was traveling along a remote stretch of a southern New Mexico highway.

Corrections officials haven't said whether they know exactly where or when the men managed to escape, but they said it was sometime after 8:30pm Wednesday and along a roughly 200-mile route between correctional facilities in Roswell and Las Cruces that included a gas-station stop in a smaller desert town.

Authorities didn't realize the men were missing until 1am Thursday, Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel said. He and other state officials scrambled Friday to answer embarrassing questions about the missteps that could have been made that night, including how two felons bound by shackles somehow slipped away in white prison jumpsuits and vanished into the night with no one noticing, possibly for hours.

Cruz was fortunately recaptured yesterday. Clah remains on the run.

Ref: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...z42hFd4noO
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I'm glad that fewer drug-related and low level crimes are resulting in long-term incarceration as a result of bi-partisan criminal justice system reform.

Now, as part of the those system reform efforts, I hope to see high priority put on improving the security/staffing/operations at correctional facilities that house predators and violent criminals who deserve to be locked up.

It seems that at least monthly there is another report of murderers, rapists and other violent criminals slipping away undetected; presenting a real threat to public safety.