Authorities seek convicts who escaped from transport van

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities were searching Thursday for two violent convicts who escaped from a prisoner transport van and likely got a head start of several hours in a rural area of New Mexico before guards realized they were gone.

State Police investigators faced the daunting task of searching a wide swath of New Mexico for Joseph Cruz, a convicted murderer, and Lionel Clah, who pleaded guilty to armed robbery in 2009.

Clah, 29, was convicted in Farmington in 2009 of armed robbery and assault with intent to commit a violent felony on a peace officer.

The search was joined by the U.S. Border Patrol and local police departments, and it involved dogs, aircraft and foot patrols.

State police also were seeking surveillance footage from the gas station in Artesia where the van had stopped.

The escape comes after Corrections Department officials warned of dangerously low staffing levels at prison facilities across the state and of low wages that made it difficult to keep qualified officers on staff.