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The Americas

Four Americans Killed in Separate Attacks in Border City, Mexican Authorities Say

Published November 01, 2010

| Associated Press

AP

Nov. 1: A police officer stands guard by seized marijuana at the Baja California state police headquarters in Tijuana, Mexico.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Four U.S. citizens were shot to death in separate attacks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexican authorities said Monday.

Chihuahua state prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said Edgar Lopez, 35, of El Paso, Texas, was killed Sunday along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house.

On Saturday, a 26-year-old U.S. woman and an American boy were slain shortly after crossing an international bridge from El Paso. Giovanna Herrera and Luis Araiza, 15, were shot to death along with a Mexican man traveling with them just after 11 a.m., Sandoval said.

Sandoval said authorities also identified a 24-year-old woman killed Friday inside a tortilla shop as Lorena Izaguirre, a U.S. citizen and El Paso resident. A Mexican man was also found dead in the store.

Sandoval did not provide any information about possible motive in any of the slayings.

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Mexican Drug Cartel Sends Assassins to Arizona

We Have troops half way around the world, yet we can't send them a couple of miles south to handle this?  When is enough enough?

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Remember the man that was murdered while Jet Skiing on Falcon Lake? The Lead Mexican investigator is dead now too.. wonder who did it? Mexican Drug Cartel maybe? Is Shepard Smith going to report on this?

Shepard Smith from Fox news was very dismissive in an initial interview. I couldn't believe how he immediately discredited the thought that it actually happened, as described by Tiffany Hartley (wife of the victim).  


Shepard so obviously sided with the attorney, that was trying to cast doubt on the events as Tiffany  described.  Shepard could be heard in the background giving extra support to the argument that it wasn't Mexican Drug Cartel Pirates.

Well Shepard, I hope you read the article from CNN (ironically enough) that covers the death of Rolando Armando Flores.  He was decapitated.  Wonder who did it Shep?

THE BORDER SITUATION IS IN CRISIS MODE AMERICA.  OUR SOUTHERN STATES NEED OUR HELP, AND FAST! 

Video Link on story

 (CNN) -- The lead Mexican investigator in the Falcon Lake case, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, has been killed, his severed head delivered Tuesday in a suitcase to the Mexican military, officials told CNN.
"His head was delivered to the army garrison this morning in a suitcase after he failed to report back home last night," Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. said.
A spokesman for the attorney general of Tamaulipas state in Mexico, Ruben Dario-Rios, confirmed the killing Tuesday afternoon in a telephone interview.
The report came a day after authorities in the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office gave conflicting information on whether authorities were pursuing a pair of suspects in the case of David Michael Hartley's disappearance.
Hartley's wife, Tiffany, told authorities that her husband was fatally shot September 30 during a sightseeing trip the two were taking on Falcon Lake, which straddles the border.

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Pirate Lake: Mexican Bandits Terrorizing American Boaters on the Border

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published October 04, 2010

| FoxNews.com

David Michael Hartley, 30, of Colorado, was gunned down in Mexican waters on Thursday while his wife, Tiffany, dodged bullets and raced her Jet Ski back to American soil.

Sportsmen in southern Texas have been pulling bass and catfish from Falcon Lake for more than half a century. A 60-miles-long "big fishing paradise" that straddles the U.S.-Mexican border, it is also a hotspot for bird-watchers, providing glimpses of species like the black-chinned hummingbird and the red-bellied woodpecker.
But now the suspected murder of a Colorado tourist, who is said to have been shot in the head as he operated a Jet Ski on international waters last week, has prompted Texas officials to renew warnings about another species that inhabits Falcon Lake -- Mexican pirates.
Search teams continued to scour the U.S. side of Falcon Lake on Monday for the body of David Michael Hartley, 30, whose wife told police he was shot in the head Thursday after they were ambushed by two boatloads of armed men. Authorities say Hartley was shot while he and his wife, Tiffany, were riding their watercraft on the Mexican side of the lake. Tiffany Hartley, 29, managed to escape the gunfire and return to the shore on the American side of the lake.
Officials at the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) say Hartley's apparent death marked the fifth incident since April 30 in which U.S. residents ventured into Mexican waters and encountered pirates on Falcon Lake. Prior to last week, the most recent occurred on Aug. 31, when authorities say pirates aboard a small boat with "Game Wardin" written on its side, in duct-tape lettering, tried to intercept a Texas fisherman. The fisherman, aware of warnings about pirates on the lake and recognizing the misspelling of the word "warden," managed to outrun the Mexican vessel to safety, officials said.
On May 16, five armed men boarded a boat on the U.S. side of Falcon Lake. Investigators have no additional information in that incident. Only 10 days earlier, two armed men approached a boat on the lake's northern side and demanded money, which the fisherman handed over, DPS officials say.
DPS officials are warning anyone headed to Falcon Lake to be on the lookout for vessels typically used by Mexican fishermen: boats with a large prow, a small outboard motor without a cowling and no identification numbers on the hull.
The pirates are believed to be members of a drug trafficking organization or members of an enforcer group linked to a heavily-armed drug trafficking organization that utilizes AK-47s or AR-15 rifles. DPS officials say the men appear to be using local Mexican fisherman to operate the boats to get as close as possible to American fishermen.
DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange told FoxNews.com that her agency, along with the Zapata County Sheriff's Office and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, continues to warn boaters to stay on the U.S. side of Falcon Lake and not to venture into Mexican waters. She said Mexican authorities are cooperating in the ongoing investigation.
"We've been talking to them since Thursday," Mange said. "[The investigation is] continuing. We're searching on the American side."
Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told Fox News on Monday that the Hartleys ventured up to 3 miles into Mexican waters to photograph ruins of a famous church in Old Guerrero. Gonzalez said a witness told authorities that one of the vessels chased Tiffany Hartley back into U.S. territory
"I think they were after money," Gonzalez said of the gunmen. "We've had similar incidents happen in April and May."
He said his office is trying to contact Mexican authorities to be granted access to the area where the shooting occurred.
"However, unfortunately, we have not seen very much action on behalf of Mexican authorities to reach the scene up there and try to look for a body," he said.
David England, superintendent of Falcon State Park, a 572-acre parcel that includes Falcon Lake, said roughly 160,000 people visit the southern Texas landmark annually to camp, swim, fish, water ski and boat, among other activities. Fishing, however, reigns supreme.
"That's what it's always been known for," England told FoxNews.com.
According to the park's website, Falcon Lake, a dammed section of the Rio Grande, is a "big fishing paradise, especially for those seeking black and white bass, catfish and stripers." There's also a mile-long, self-guided nature trail and campsites with restrooms and showers.
But a growing number of those visitors have recently asked park officials about reports of pirates on the lake, England said.
"It hits national news every day, so yeah, it's getting around," England said of reports of Hartley's murder. "Yeah, anybody that has watched the news has asked about it."
England reiterated that the park has had the same warning in effect since early May, advising visitors to stay on the U.S. side of the border. As of Monday, England said Falcon State Park had just one DPS police officer assigned to the entire facility, with another full-time officer on the way, he said. Due to the ongoing media attention to the lake since Hartley's death, England thinks visitation will go down.
"I would say it probably will affect visitation," he said. "That's my guess."
Asked if the lake is safe, England replied: "Well, it is, if you listen to the warnings to stay on the U.S. side of the lake. To my knowledge, all of these incidents have happened in Mexico or right at the line, so to speak."
The shooting has prompted several lawmakers to call for increased surveillance of the area, including one politician in southern Texas who said it has become dangerous enough to avoid altogether.
"I wouldn't do it," said state Rep. Aaron Pena, who was briefed on the pirates earlier this year. "When I go out there I have all the protection Texas can provide. But the average fisherman doesn't have that."
Pena said he has no doubt that the pirates are working with Mexico's powerful drug cartels. If they didn't, the cartels that control the region wouldn't let them operate, he said.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said last week that the shooting highlights the need for federal government to better secure the southern border.
"It's really become substantially worse in the last 18 months with the drug cartels having almost free rein," Perry said on Friday. "This is about our citizens' -- on both sides of the borders -- safety."
Ray Walser, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, also called on federal authorities to shore up border security.
"This is a situation that, all along the border, we're seeing little flare-ups," Walser told Fox News. "It's not an everyday occurrence, but this is a tragedy that really should not happen."
Meanwhile, officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in a statement to FoxNews.com on Monday, wrote:
"Over the past nineteen months, this administration has dedicated unprecedented manpower, technology and infrastructure to the Southwest border. Seizures of illicit goods are up across the board, illegal crossings are down, and the Border Patrol is better staffed than at any time in its 86-year history. 
"Though drug cartels are engaged in an armed, violent struggle to control shrinking drug routes and territories in Mexico, we are not, however, seeing any indications of similar violence here in the U.S. 
"We will continue to work with our federal, state, local, tribal and Mexican partners to keep our communities safe."

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