Friends have identified the teenager who drowned late last week in a Bloomington lake.
The body of Joe Tarango, 18, of Bloomington, was recovered by Hennepin County dive personnel from Bush Lake on Saturday.
Emergency workers spent hours searching for Tarango after a 911 call came in around 3:30 p.m. reporting that he had not surfaced from the water.
His friends told police that they were swimming toward a dock about 100 feet from the beach when Tarango began struggling, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Edgar Linares.
Authorities cleared the busy beachfront and worked into the evening before locating the body at nightfall.
Longtime friend Sergio Aceves said Tarango grew up in Mexico about 150 miles from the Texas border and moved to Minnesota about two weeks ago.
"He wanted to succeed in life," Aceves said. "That's why he went to live the American dream. … He wanted to be someone in life, an important person, so much that he managed to leave here to pursue his dream. He wanted to be a bodybuilder."
