The shooting took place Tuesday night on Falcon Lake, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Zapata County Sheriff’s Office revealed.
Preliminary information indicates that 26-year-old Oscar Garza and 21-year-old Javier Gonzalez were operating a boat in Falcon State Park, a famous fishing spot on the border with Mexico. According to Zapata County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Ray Del Bosque, the events that led to the shooting remain unclear–but another craft approached the men prior to the shooting. A confrontation took place, prompting the boaters to flee while the alleged attackers opened fire–striking Garza while Gonzalez dove into the water to avoid the hail of bullets. The boat used by the shooting suspects is believed to have fled back to Mexico.
Sheriff’s investigators are waiting to perform an official interview with Gonzalez until he is released from a local hospital for hypothermia treatments.
Falcon Lake is an area commonly used by the Los Zetas cartel to smuggle large quantities of marijuana and illegal immigrants into Texas. The area is immediately south of Zapata and Starr Counties.
Falcon Lake is also the area where Los Zetas cartel gunmen murdered David Hartley in 2010 while he and his wife were jet-skiing, Breitbart Texas previously reported. Hartley and wife Tiffany had been enjoying the lake until Los Zetas gunmen tried to kidnap them and began to shoot as the couple fled. David was struck by the gunfire, while Tiffany managed to escape.
Falcon Lake is also the same area where in 2015 Texas State Troopers on gunboats captured a top Los Zetas commander who was trying to sneak into Texas, Breitbart Texas reported. In that case, authorities arrested Jose Manuel “Z-31 or El Borrado” Saldivar Farias, a regional commander for the Los Zetas Cartel, as he rode a boat into the Zapata County.
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