Falcon Lake Texas

Lalest News Update About Falcon Lake Texas :Texas officials planned Friday to renew warnings about pirates marauding on a U.S.-Mexico border lake after a Colorado tourist was gunned down in Mexican waters while his wife dodged bullets and raced her Jet Ski back to American soil.
Search teams combed the U.S. side of Falcon Lake for David Michael Hartley, 30, whose wife told police he was shot in the back of the head Thursday after being ambushed by gunmen on boats.
The gunmen are suspected pirates who have turned Falcon Lake, a waterskiing and bass fishing hotspot down the border from Laredo, into uneasy waters for fishermen and boaters. There have been at least five reported run-ins with pirates on the lake this year, though prior holdups had never been deadly.

Hartley’s fate was unclear. Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said 29-year-old Tiffany Hartley fears her husband is dead. She circled back on her Jet Ski to rescue him but had to retreat when she heard bullets whizzing by.
Gonzalez said he had contacted the Mexican consulate to ask them to search for Hartley on its side of the lake.
“I’m not trying to place the blame on her or him,” Gonzalez said. “But we’ve told people not to go over there, and now this happens.”
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department spokesman Mike Cox said Friday that the state planned to issue a fresh warning to boaters about staying on the U.S. side of the lake. The last warning came in May, and some campers on the lake have taken to arming themselves.
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.
According to Gonzalez, Tiffany Hartley told police that the couple rode their Jet Skis for sightseeing and to take pictures of a famous church in Old Guerrero. They were riding back when they saw the armed gunmen on the boats, and immediately began racing back to U.S. waters.

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department spokesman Mike Cox said Friday that authorities continued searching the U.S. side of the recreation spot, about 60 miles south of Laredo, for the 30-year-old man.
Hartley and his wife, Tiffany, were riding personal watercrafts back from Mexico on the lake around 2:45 p.m. Thursday when approximately six gunmen approached in two boats and opened fire, said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez.
Though it is unclear what exactly happened to Hartley, the sheriff said he was apparently shot when the couple attempted to flee after they spotted the boaters. His wife was not hurt and reportedly tried circling back to pull her husband from the water, but she was forced to speed away to U.S. waters after the gunmen opened fire again.
The shooting renewed warnings of pirates on Falcon Lake where there have been five run-ins with the bandits this year, according to Cox. Read more.