arizona news
Has been updated: February 22, 2023 at 8:23 PM
George Alan Kelly (Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office)
PHOENIX (AP) — Prosecutors in a case against an Arizona rancher accused of murdering a Mexican man on his property near the U.S.-Mexico border said at a court hearing on Wednesday that the rancher was about eight. A group of unarmed migrants was shot that day. Illegal immigration to America.
Kimberly Hanley, chief deputy attorney for Santa Cruz County in Nogales, Arizona, said the court released documents filed Tuesday alleging that rancher George Alan Kelly began firing at the group “out of nowhere.” On the same day, it made this claim. On January 30th, without any warning or request to leave.
Kelly, 73, faces first-degree murder charges in the death of one of those identified by the sheriff’s office as Gabriel Cuen Butimea, who lived just south of the border in neighboring Nogales, Mexico. He was convicted of illegal immigration, deported to Mexico several times, and most recently in 2016, according to U.S. federal court records where his last name is spelled slightly differently than Cuen-Buitimea. deported.
Two more people from the group later turned themselves in to law enforcement, and authorities this week amended the complaint against Kelly to “use a rifle, deadly weapon, or dangerous instrument” in the shooting at Kelly’s ranch. He urged the inclusion of two aggravated assaults.
The two were in line of fire but were not attacked, according to court filings updated Wednesday. One said he saw a man he knew was being beaten by Gabriel, who said he “felt like he was being hunted.”
Both fled across the border to Mexico, but are prepared to testify in the case against Kelly, documents say.
The court, county attorney’s office, and sheriff’s office have all received several disturbing communications of a threatening nature that they believe indicate a continuing threat to the safety of victims.
She said Kelly’s comments contradicted what witnesses in the group told law enforcement, and that his story has changed significantly over time.
“Kelly, without warning or provocation, shot an unarmed man in the back as he fled, in addition to shooting other individuals,” Hanley said in a filing, accusing Kelly of $1 million in cash. He opposed the reduction of bonds.
She wrote that the group “posed no threat to him or his family” but nevertheless “repeatedly opened fire with AK-47s, attacking and killing one of them”.
Kelly’s attorney, Brenna Larkin, says Kelly did not shoot the man, but Kelly carried an AK-47 rifle and backpack that he encountered on the property earlier in the day. He admitted to firing warning shots over the smuggler’s head.
Justice of the Peace Emilio G. Velázquez Wednesday ordered that Kelly’s bond be changed from cash to a bond. Play.
Velasquez has scheduled another hearing Friday at 9:00 am (11:00 am ET) at the Santa Cruz County Court of Justice.
“We are following this case very closely,” said Marcos Moreno Baez, Consul General of the Mexican Consulate General in Nogales, Arizona. We are doing all we can to help.”
The shooting sparked strong political sentiment less than six months after the prison warden and his brother were arrested in the West Texas shooting. Michael Shepherd and Mark Shepherd, both in his 60s, have been charged with manslaughter in his September shooting in El Paso County.
Authorities say the twin brothers stopped their truck near the town about 25 miles (40 km) from the border and opened fire on a group of migrants who were fetching water along the road. A male migrant died and a woman suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen.
A GoFundMe campaign covering the costs of Kelly’s defense has been suspended and the funds have been returned to the donors, the platform said in a statement last week.
“GoFundMe’s terms of service expressly prohibit campaigns that raise funds to cover the legal defense of persons duly charged with violent crimes,” it said. “Consistent with this long-standing policy, the fundraising campaign for the legal defense of someone charged with murder will be removed from our platform.”
GiveSendGo, which bills itself as a Christian fundraising platform, has represented Kelly in legal defense for at least four campaigns, including one that has raised over $300,000 as of Wednesday.
Kelly appears to have explored border pastoral life in her self-published novel Far Beyond the Border Fence, described by Amazon.com as “a contemporary novel that brings Mexico’s border/drug conflict into the 21st century.” increase.
The 57-page novel, written by a man of the same name, focuses on a man named George and his wife, Wanda, who is also named Kelly’s real-life wife.
“Several times a week, illegal immigrants cross the VMR ranch,” reads one. “They were led by armed human smugglers called coyotes. George and the foreman had to patrol the ranch daily armed with AK-47s.”
The 2010 shooting death of an Arizona rancher on his property spurred the passage of the state’s Senate Bill 1070, a “Show me your papers” law, which at the time was the It was described as the toughest anti-immigrant law in the country. Law enforcement officers had to inquire about a suspect’s immigration status if they believed he was in the United States illegally.
No one was arrested in the murder of Robert Krentz at his ranch in remote eastern Arizona, but law enforcement identified the perpetrator as footprints found at the murder scene led to the border. I assumed he was an immigrant.
