WIDOW WANTS U.S. TO FIGHT VIOLENCE OF MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS

Tiffany Hartley, whose husband was reported shot by Mexican drug
bandits last month, has some words for President Barack Obama.

"He should wake up and look at what's going on in our backyard,"
where drug cartel battles in Mexico have led to hundreds of deaths.

Her husband, David Hartley, was shot by unknown assailants on Sept.
30 while the two were riding WaveRunners on Falcon Reservoir, which
is on the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Neither he nor his
watercraft have been recovered.

Both the Hartleys were raised in Colorado, and they had been planning
to move back here from Texas.

Hartley said she, friends and family are going to focus on getting
the attention of Congress, governors and U.S. citizens to do
something about the drug violence.

She also plans guest appearances on national news talk shows, which
she didn't identify except to say they are in "New York and Los Angeles."

She said she will need the media to "keep this story out there. You
are my way to get my voice out there."

Hartley returned to Colorado on Saturday from McAllen, Texas, where
the couple had been living.

She held an afternoon news conference on a dirt road outside the
rural Weld County home of her parents, Bob and Cynthia Young, who
drove with her back to Colorado.

"David is not the only American who has been killed, but his
situation may be a turning point" for this country to do something
about the drug violence, she said.

Hartley said she felt "thrown into" the situation, but said, "I am
ready for the challenge. I don't want his death to have been in vain."

Americans "in Colorado and New York and Washington don't have a clue
what's going on" with the cartels.

"I want Americans and everyone to focus on this," Hartley said,
adding the U.S. puts too much time into what's going on in other
countries rather than neighboring Mexico.

Hartley said she has returned to Colorado to be with family.

"The hardest part was coming back without having him next to me," she said.

She was questioned for 16 hours by Mexican authorities. "Here they
can't have access to me."

She said she believes U.S. authorities are doing everything they can,
but that the full story of what happened to her husband's body or why
they were attacked may never be known.

Hartley recounted again how she and her husband were attacked by a
boatload of armed men. Her husband was shot and fell off his
WaveRunner personal watercraft as the couple returned from a visit to
see a half-submerged Mexican church. She said she fled for her own
safety because assailants were shooting at her.

At one point they were 12 feet away "and had a gun pointed at my
head," she said.

Virginia Culver