Austin-based national reporter covering immigration and voting rights issues.
When George Alan Kelly saw a group of camouflaged men traveling across his 170-acre ranch on Jan. 30, 2023, he suspected the worst. Drug traffickers frequently pass through the area outside Kino Springs, Arizona, which lies about two miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
George Alan Kelly enters court for his preliminary hearing in Nogales Justice Court in Nogales, Arizona, on Feb. 22, 2023. Kelly, faces a first-degree murder charge in the fatal shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico.Arizona Republicans are pushing a law that would expand the state’s Castle Doctrine to allow people to use deadly force if they feel threatened when confronting trespassers. The law’s author, Rep.
“This proposal happened because George Alan Kelly was accused of killing a migrant who basically crossed his property,” said Abhi Rahman, a spokesperson for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “Murder is something that should definitely not be legal.
The man, Gerardo Espinosa, told Kelly that he had used the area for target practice since he was a kid. Kelly’s property borders the Coronado National Forest, where target shooting is permitted. Espinosa later told police that Kelly “made racial comments toward him” during the confrontation. Espinosa responded by saying, “I’m gonna tell all the wetbacks I see to come cut down your fences.”
And in court filings, prosecutors disputed her vision of rifle-toting criminals crossing through the ranch, deriding it as a “claim that the equivalent of a 20-member military platoon armed with AK-47s marched on Kino Springs but made no news.”Whatever the case, George Alan Kelly appeared to increasingly see himself as a vigilante in the years after 2021, with a growing hostility toward unauthorized migrants.
A Border Patrol agent arrived at the scene to take Kelly’s report, then left. Kelly only found 48-year-old Cuen Butimea’s body a couple of hours later, when he passed through the area with his dogs. He backed away from it and called Border Patrol once again. Cuen Butimea had worn “tactical boots,” a fanny pack, a backpack and a two-way radio, which Kelly’s defender described as evidence that he was trafficking either people or drugs through Kelly’s property.Kelly denies shooting Cuen Butimea.
Prosecutors later found two men, identified in court records as D.R.-R. and R.A.F.-G., who say they traveled with the group that day and witnessed the events directly. The group wasn’t trafficking drugs, they say, and the men were heading to Phoenix to find work. Both the witnesses and Cuen Butimea had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in the past.D.R.-R.
Kelly’s defense attorney has attacked the state’s two key witnesses repeatedly in court filings, claiming they came forward only in the hope of avoiding legal trouble in the United States and only knew the details of the case because it had gained public notoriety. Several of their statements — that Kelly’s horse was shot, that Cuen Butimea was shot at close distance, that a total of 15 shots were fired — contradict the physical evidence, Kelly’s lawyer says.
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