DENVER—The wife of a Colorado man presumably gunned down on a lake on the U.S.-Mexico border said Monday that Americans need to wake up to the problem of violence there.
Tiffany Hartley and the Texas sheriff who has been investigating the case spoke at a session in Denver for law-enforcement officers. Hartley has said she and her husband were sightseeing on Falcon Lake when her husband, David, was shot Sept. 30. She said she tried to rescue him but raced back to the U.S. side as bullets whizzed by.
The search for his body has been suspended due to violence in the area, said Hartley, who was living in Texas but is now back in Colorado, where she grew up.
Zapata County Sheriff Sigi Gonzalez said he has been pressing since at least 2005 for more federal help to protect residents on the Mexican border who are afraid of going on their own land after dark, as the sounds of rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire have become more familiar.
“On the border, people live in fear on the U.S. side. On the Mexico side, forget it. It’s totally out of control. Or I should say, it’s in the control of the drug cartels,” Gonzalez said before the session.
Hartley, who grew up in Loveland, Colo., said she is speaking up about violence on the border on behalf of her own family but also for other victims with relatives in Mexico who have stayed silent for fear of retaliation.
“Ultimately, this is bigger than just David. His death will not be in vain because I will continue to do what I can to secure our border,” she said.
Pirates have robbed several Americans on Falcon Lake this year. Though the Hartleys had been living in Reynosa, Mexico, and then McAllen, Texas, Hartley said she hadn’t realized the breadth of violence perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels until she and her husband were targeted.
The cartels have pushed into the U.S., too. A 2008 report from the National Drug Intelligence Center shows Mexican drug trafficking organizations have operations in at least 195 U.S. cities, including five in Colorado and cities in Alaska and Hawaii.
Organizers of the session Monday said they had asked Gonzalez to speak before the Hartley case began. Gonzalez says he regularly speaks around the country about border issues.
