Pirates shoot U.S. man in Mexican waters

[Bullfighter]

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — An American tourist was shot in the back of the head in Mexican waters on Thursday after being ambushed by armed boaters, a Texas sheriff said. It happened near the U.S. boundary of a lake where run-ins with pirates already had fishermen and Texas officials on alert.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez identified the victim as David Michael Hartley, 30. Hartley and his wife were riding personal watercrafts back from Mexico on Falcon Lake when about six gunmen approached in two boats, Gonzalez said. The sheriff said Hartley was shot as the couple sped away at the sight of the boaters.

What happened to Hartley was unclear. Gonzalez said the man's wife tried circling back to pull him from the water, but she was forced to retreat to U.S. waters after being fired upon again.

"They saw them approaching and started revving it up back to the U.S. side," Gonzalez said. "The guys just started shooting at them from behind."
Gonzalez said he has contacted the Mexican consulate and asked them to look for the man. He said there was nothing else he could do.


One of the boats may have crossed the U.S. side of the lake to fire at the woman, said Mike Cox, a spokesman for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. The shooting renewed warnings of pirates on Falcon Lake, which is about 60 miles down the border from Laredo and is popular with water skiers and bass fishing.

Earlier this year, several fishermen were robbed at gunpoint on the lake's Mexican side. In those holdups, authorities say the gunmen traveled in the low-slung, underpowered commercial Mexican fishing boats that are familiar in the area. They asked for money, drugs and guns, and took what cash was available, but no one was hurt.

Hartley and his wife moved to McAllen, Texas, from the Mexican border city of Reynosa about five months ago and had planned to returned to their native Colorado in two weeks, Gonzalez said. Gonzalez said Hartley worked in the oil business.

Reynosa has been beset recently with warring drug cartels and Mexican authorities, but Gonzalez said he believed the shooting was a random attack. He has previously chalked up the dangerous waters as the product of fighting between rival Mexican drug gangs.

"I would think that, right now, the prudent boater would want to stay on the Texas side," Cox said Thursday.

Authorities said the shooting happened about 2:45 p.m. Gonzalez said the couple never spoke to the gunmen, and the woman raced her watercraft to the shores of the first lakeside homes she could reach and asked for help. He said they had ridden over to Mexico for sightseeing and to take photos of a famous church in Old Guerrero.

That is identical to what five boaters did in April when authorities say they were approached by men who identified themselves as "Federales" and asked for drugs. Those boaters handed over $200 before the pirates chased them back to U.S. waters.

Violence on the Mexican side of the lake has been climbing for several months, as a fractured partnership between the region's dominant Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, plunged many of the area's Mexican border cities into violence.

Falcon Lake is a dammed section of the Rio Grande that straddles the border. The border is marked by 14 partially submerged concrete towers that mark the Rio Grande's path before the lake was created in 1954.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...shooting_N.htm

------------------------------------------------------

First Somalia, now Mexico? Pirates? Where's the US Navy?


​

 

[Douger]

First Somalia, now Mexico? Pirates? Where's the US Navy?


[/INDENT]

Protecting IsNtReal

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

Borders are bigotry .

 

[Mr. H.]

Borders are bigotry .

Yeah, where's Boaters Without Borders when you need 'em.

 

[xotoxi]

I was planning on vacationing on Falcon Lake...but I'm thinking of cancelling.

 

[Charles_Main]

Borders are bigotry .

ROFLMAO

then the entire world are bigots. We are the only nation not enforcing their border.

Guess were the least bigoted of all.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

 

[Douger]

It IS tourist season.......

 

[Douger]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

Don't say that too loud. I see you're from Boston but now you are slap in the true heart of murka.
Ya might git summa that thar chewin bakky spitted on yer yankee ass.

 

[uscitizen]

The guy who got shot was in Mexico illegally? An illegal alien?

some of those republican citizen border guards?

 

[uscitizen]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

We will actually invade Mexico to protect the US industries located there.

 

[Bullfighter]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

The US involvement in Korea was considered a police action. I like the idea of policing all the Mexicans back to their side in the third world. I'm getting tired of speaking "broken English".

 

[Charles_Main]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

The US involvement in Korea was considered a police action. I like the idea of policing all the Mexicans back to their side in the third world.

Korea was a UN police action.

 

[Bullfighter]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

The US involvement in Korea was considered a police action. I like the idea of policing all the Mexicans back to their side in the third world.

Korea was a UN police action.

You're right. At least on paper. US contributed the most lives though after South Korea. It was nice to see a Latin American country, Columbia, actually contribute something too. Wouldn't think of asking communist Mexico to help out.

 

[uptownlivin90]

The US involvement in Korea was considered a police action. I like the idea of policing all the Mexicans back to their side in the third world.

Korea was a UN police action.

You're right. At least on paper. US contributed the most lives though after South Korea. It was nice to see a Latin American country, Columbia, actually contribute something too. Wouldn't think of asking communist Mexico to help out.

Mexico doesn't have enough of a government to be communist.

 

[uptownlivin90]

I think it's becoming more inevitable that we're going to have to send American soldiers into Mexico at some point. I don't mean an invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, but more of a police action to work alongside Mexican soldiers to crack down on the violence. It's slowly starting to spill over our border.

Of course, we could also do away with our archaic drug laws and would go a long way to solve the problem too.

We'll assassinate Chavez, invade Latin America, build a huge metropolis out of pure gold on top of Mexico City, and build a massive impenetrable wall around Cuba to starve out the communists before we do that, AND all at tax payers expense.

 

[zzzz]

Why not invade along the whole border area 50 miles deep and then form a zone of occupation. This zone will be administered by the US and patrolled by US Army forces. All occupants of the Mexzone will be required to present documentation of residence in the zone. Non-zone Mexicans will be required to have documentation also. This would give the US a buffer zone that illegials would have to traverse before even getting to the border. It would also help to limit the violence occurring in the border area and may limit the drug smuggling too.

 

[uscitizen]

Korea was a UN police action.

You're right. At least on paper. US contributed the most lives though after South Korea. It was nice to see a Latin American country, Columbia, actually contribute something too. Wouldn't think of asking communist Mexico to help out.

Mexico doesn't have enough of a government to be communist.

Mexico, an example of what smaller government can get you.

 

[uscitizen]

Mexico is just defending it's borders from illegal Immigrants.
And they privatized their coast guard.

 

[uptownlivin90]

Why not invade along the whole border area 50 miles deep and then form a zone of occupation. This zone will be administered by the US and patrolled by US Army forces. All occupants of the Mexzone will be required to present documentation of residence in the zone. Non-zone Mexicans will be required to have documentation also. This would give the US a buffer zone that illegials would have to traverse before even getting to the border. It would also help to limit the violence occurring in the border area and may limit the drug smuggling too.

Why don't we just all buy automatic weapons and move to tijuana?