Prosecutor: Arizona border rancher shot at unarmed migrants
PHOENIX >> 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 firstdegree murder charge in the death of one of the people, Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, who lived just south of the border in adjacent Nogales, Mexico. U.S. federal court records show Cuen-Butimea 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 Cuen-Butima 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 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.”