By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – Texas Gov. Rick Perry says backing down in the face of threats from Mexican drug cartels and gangsters is "the worst thing we can do."
Perry made his comments after a Mexican police commander who had been investigating the reported shooting of an American tourist on a border lake was killed Tuesday, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.
Perry told The Associated Press that the response on both sides of the border should be to increase "the numbers of law enforcement and military."
Perry has been pressuring Mexico to step up the search for David Hartley. Hartley's wife, Tiffany, says she and her husband were attacked by pirates on the lake on Sept. 30, while they were returning to the U.S. from Mexico on Jet Skis. Hartley was shot and presumably fell into the lake.
Parents of boy sue Dallas utility over death
A utility has been sued over the death of a 10-year-old bicyclist who was struck and killed by a speeding Dallas police car in a videotaped accident.
WFAA-TV reports the lawsuit, filed Monday by the parents of Cole Berardi, alleges the absence of street lights contributed to the death in 2008.
Oncor spokeswoman Medan Wright says the company does not feel that the street lights caused or contributed to the accident. She declined further comment.
Sr. Cpl. Michael Vaughn was suspended for a day for violating department policy. Authorities say Vaughn was speeding without starting his lights and sirens while headed for a call on Oct. 17, 2008. Investigators say the boy was riding his bicycle on a poorly lit road when he was struck.
A patrol car dashboard camera captured the incident.
Texas plant, 4 other nuke sites get awards
A U.S. Department of Energy agency has named Pantex, the country's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant, as one of five U.S. sites honored for pollution prevention and environmental excellence.
A National Nuclear Security Administration statement Tuesday said employees at Pantex, near Amarillo, came up with ideas that helped save the plant 18 million gallons of water last fiscal year.
Also named to receive awards were New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California also received awards.
The agency giving the awards is semiautonomous within the DOE.