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Prosecutors in the case against an Arizona rancher accused of killing Mexicans on his land near the US-Mexico border alleged during a court hearing Wednesday that the rancher opened fire on a group of eight unarmed migrants who entered the US illegally.
Kimberly Hunley, the chief deputy prosecutor for Santa Cruz County in the border city of Nogales, Ariz., made a statement on Tuesday, the same day the court announced the public filing that the rancher George Alan Kelly began shooting in the group “out. nowhere” in January 30 without giving any warning or request to leave.
Kelly, 73, faces charges of first-degree murder in the death of one of the men, identified by the sheriff’s office as Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, who lived south of the border in Nogales, Mexico. US federal court records show that Cuen-Buitimea, whose last name is slightly different, has been convicted of illegal entry and deported back to Mexico several times, most recently in 2016.
Two other people from the group then came forward to law enforcement, causing authorities this week to amend the complaint against Kelly including two counts of aggravated assault “using a gun, deadly weapon or dangerous instrument” in the shooting at his ranch.
Both men were in the line of fire, but were not hit, according to court filings updated Wednesday. One described watching a man known as Gabriel being hit and saying he “felt like he was being hunted.”
Both fled back across the border into Mexico but were willing to testify in Kelly’s case, the documents said.
The suspect used an AK-47, the victim was shot in the back: prosecutors
The court, the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office “all have received disturbing communications, some threatening in nature, that seem to indicate an active threat to the safety of the victim,” said Hunley’s updated filing.
He said Kelly’s comments conflicted with what witnesses from the group told law enforcement, and their story changed significantly.
“Kelly shot an unarmed man in the back as he fled, in addition to shooting other people, without warning or provocation,” Hunley said in the filing, arguing against a reduction in Kelly’s $1 million cash bond.
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He wrote that the group “posed no threat to him or his family,” but “fired repeatedly with AK-47s, striking and killing one of them.”
Kelly’s attorney, Brenna Larkin, said Kelly did not shoot and kill the man, but Kelly admitted that earlier that day he fired a warning shot above the head of a smuggler carrying an AK-47 rifle and a backpack he encountered on his property.
Velasquez set another hearing for Friday in Santa Cruz County Justice Court.
“We are following this case very closely,” said Consul General Marcos Moreno Baez from the Mexican consulate in Nogales, Ariz.
This is the 2nd fatality on the southern border in the past year
A GoFundMe campaign to pay for Kelly’s legal defense has been closed and the money returned to donors, the platform said last week in a statement.
“In accordance with this long-standing policy, fundraising campaigns for the legal defense of people accused of murder will be removed from our platform,” he said.
GiveSendGo, which describes itself as a Christian fundraising platform, is running at least four campaigns raising money for Kelly’s legal defense, including one that raised more than $300,000 as of Wednesday.
The shooting sparked strong political feelings less than six months after a prison warden and his brother were arrested in a shooting in West Texas that killed one migrant and wounded another. Michael and Mark Sheppard, both 60, are charged with murder in the September shooting in El Paso County.
The fatal shooting of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz on his land in 2010 sparked a firestorm that helped speed up state Senate Bill 1070, the “show your papers” law, which was later described as the nation’s toughest anti-immigrant legislation. It requires law enforcement officers to inquire about a suspect’s immigration status if they believe they are in the U.S. illegally.
No one has ever been arrested in Krentz’s slaying at a cattle ranch in eastern Arizona, but law enforcement believed the perpetrator was a migrant because footprints found at the scene of the killing led to the border.
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