ARIZONA NEWS

Prosecutor accuses Arizona border rancher of firing at unarmed group

Feb 22, 2023, 3:00 PM | Updated: 8:23 pm
George Alan Kelly (Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office)...
George Alan Kelly (Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office)
(Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office)

PHOENIX (AP) — The prosecutor in the case against an Arizona rancher accused of killing a Mexican man on his land near the U.S.-Mexico border alleged during a court hearing Wednesday that the rancher fired that day on a group of about eight unarmed migrants who entered the U.S. illegally.

Kimberly Hunley, chief deputy attorney for Santa Cruz County in the border city of Nogales, Arizona, made the assertion the same day the court made public a filing she made Tuesday asserting that rancher George Alan Kelly began shooting at the group “out of nowhere” on Jan. 30 without issuing a warning or a request to leave.

Kelly, 73, faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of one of the people, identifed by the sheriff’s office as Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, who lived just south of the border in adjacent Nogales, Mexico. U.S. federal court records, which spell his last name slightly differently as Cuen-Buitimea, show he was convicted of illegal entry and deported back to Mexico several times, most recently in 2016.

Two more people from the group later came forward to law enforcement, prompting authorities this week to amend the complaint against Kelly to include two counts of aggravated assault “using a rifle, a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument” in a shooting at his ranch.

Those two were in the line of fire, but were not hit, according to court filings updated on Wednesday. One described watching the man they knew as Gabriel being hit and said they “felt like they were being hunted.”

Both fled back across the border into Mexico but are willing to testify in the case against Kelly, the documents say.

The court, the county attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office “have all received disturbing communications, some threatening in nature, that seem to indicate an ongoing threat to the safety of the victims,” says Hunley’s updated filing.

She says Kelly’s comments conflicted with what witnesses from the group told law enforcement, and that his story significantly changed over time.

“Kelly shot an unarmed man in the back as he was fleeing, in addition to shooting at other individuals, without warning or provocation,” Hunley said in the filing, arguing against a reduction in Kelly’s $1 million cash bond.

She wrote that the group “posed no threat to him or family,” but nevertheless “shot at them repeatedly with an AK-47, striking and killing one of them.”

Kelly’s attorney, Brenna Larkin, has said Kelly did not shoot and kill the man, but Kelly acknowledges that earlier that day he fired warning shots above the heads of smugglers carrying AK-47 rifles and backpacks he encountered on his property.

Justice of the Peace Emilio G. Velasquez on Wednesday ordered that Kelly’s bond be changed from a cash to a surety bond, which would allow Kelly to put up his ranch and home rather than come up with cash and allow him to leave custody while the case plays out.

Velasquez set another hearing for 9 a.m. MT (11 a.m. ET) Friday in Santa Cruz County Justice Court.

“We are following this case very closely,” said Consul General Marcos Moreno Baez of the Mexican consulate in Nogales, Arizona. “We have been present at the court appearances and are in touch with the victim’s family, helping however we can.”

The shooting has sparked strong political feelings less than six months after a prison warden and his brother were arrested in a West Texas shooting that killed one migrant and wounded another. Michael and Mark Sheppard, both 60, were charged with manslaughter in the September shooting in El Paso County.

Authorities allege the twin brothers pulled over their truck near a town about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the border and opened fire on a group of migrants getting water along the road. A male migrant died, and a female suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach.

GoFundMe campaigns to pay for Kelly’s legal defense have been shut down and the money was returned to donors, the platform said last week in a statement.

“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit campaigns that raise money to cover the legal defense of anyone formally charged with an alleged violent crime,” it said. “Consistent with this long-standing policy, any fundraising campaigns for the legal defense of someone charged with murder are removed from our platform.”

GiveSendGo, which describes itself as a Christian fundraising platform, carries at least four campaigns collecting money for Kelly’s legal defense, including one that gathered more than $300,000 as of Wednesday.

Kelly apparently drew on his borderlands ranching life in a self-published novel, “Far Beyond the Border Fence,” which is described on Amazon.com as a “contemporary novel which brings the Mexican Border/Drug conflict into the 21st century.”

Authored by a man with the same name, the 57-page novel focuses on a man named George and his wife, Wanda, also the name of Kelly’s real-life wife.

“Several times each week illegal immigrants would cross the VMR ranch,” reads one part. “They were led by armed human smugglers called Coyotes. George and his foreman had to patrol the ranch daily, armed with AK-47′s.”

The fatal shooting of an Arizona rancher on his land in 2010 sparked a firestorm that helped spark passage of the state’s Senate Bill 1070, the “show me your papers” law then described as the nation’s toughest anti-immigrant legislation. It required law enforcement officers to inquire about suspects’ immigration status if they believed they were in the U.S. illegally.

No one was ever arrested in the killing of Robert Krentz on his cattle ranch in remote eastern Arizona, but law enforcement assumed the perpetrator was a migrant because footprints found at the murder scene led to the border.

We want to hear from you.

Have a story idea or tip? Pass it along to the KTAR News team here.

Arizona News

(El Mirage Police Department Photo)...
KTAR.com

West Valley fugitive who faked death arrested in Indiana

A West Valley fugitive who attempted to fake his death was arrested last week in Indiana, authorities said.
21 hours ago
(Rebecca Sasnett/Arizona Daily Star via AP)...
Associated Press

Report finds UA campus safety gaps after fatal shooting

A report found there were missed opportunities to investigate an expelled University of Arizona student who killed a professor last year.
21 hours ago
(Facebook Photo/Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)...
KTAR.com

MCSO seeking information after multiple people shot at West Valley party

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is seeking information on a West Valley shooting at a party that left multiple people injured.
21 hours ago
(Pixabay Photo)...
Kevin Stone

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoes grocery tax ban, signs 9 bills into law

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed two bills Tuesday, including one to ban local grocery taxes, and signed nine others into law.
21 hours ago
(Facebook Photo/Surprise Police Department)...
KTAR.com

Suspect dead following shooting with police in Surprise

A suspect died after being shot by police in the back of a car in Surprise on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
21 hours ago
(Photo: OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center)...
Sponsored Content by OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

Here's what you need to know about OCD and where to find help

It's fair to say that most people know what obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders generally are, but there's a lot more information than meets the eye about a mental health diagnosis that affects about one in every 100 adults in the United States.

Sponsored Articles

(Photo: OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center)...

Here’s what you need to know about OCD and where to find help

It's fair to say that most people know what obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders generally are, but there's a lot more information than meets the eye about a mental health diagnosis that affects about one in every 100 adults in the United States.
...
Quantum Fiber

How high-speed fiber internet edges out cable for everyday use

In a world where technology drives so much of our daily lives, a lack of high-speed internet can be a major issue.
(Desert Institute for Spine Care photo)...
DESERT INSTITUTE FOR SPINE CARE

Why DISC is world renowned for back and neck pain treatments

Fifty percent of Americans and 90% of people at least 50 years old have some level of degenerative disc disease.
Prosecutor accuses Arizona border rancher of firing at unarmed group