George Alan Kelly, the 73-year-old Arizona rancher charged with murder after allegedly shooting a Mexican citizen on his property on September 30, has claimed he "feared for his safety" after a group of men armed with "AK-47 rifles, dressed in khakis and camouflaged clothing and carrying large backpacks" arrived near his home.
Brenna Larkin, Kelly's public defender, said in a court filing the leader of the group of men "pointed an AK-47 right at him" and that Kelly "reasonably feared for his safety, his wife's safety, and his animals' safety." Kelly then retrieved his rifle and fired warning shots at the men, according to the Daily Mail.
Larkin said, "Mr. Kelly, fearing for his life and safety, fired several shots from his rifle, hoping to scare them away from him, his wife, his animals, and his home."
"As he shot, Mr. Kelly took care to aim well over the heads of the armed group of men. The group then began running into the desert surrounding his home. Once the group had fled, Mr. Kelly walked over to his barn to see if it was safe and secure," Larkin added.
According to the court filing, after he shot, Kelly called his US Border Patrol ranch liaison, a person specifically designed to assist people who live near the border.
"None of them were known to him. He had not given any of them permission to come onto his land," Larkin said, noting that the group fled after Kelly's shots.
Authorities found 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Butime dead on Kelly's Kino Springs ranch, located roughly 1.5 miles from the border. Cuen-Butime was found with a Mexican voter registration card but it has not been confirmed if he was in the US illegally. Cuen-Butime had a reported history of crossing into the US illegally and had been deported several times, with the last incident happening in 2016.
On the day of the incident at 2:40 pm, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department was notified by US Border Patrol of a "possible active shooter" near Sagebrush Road. Reports came in that a "group of people" were running and a man named "Allen" said he was "unsure if he was getting shot at as well." The officer found nothing but another call came in three hours later and that's when authorities located Cuen-Butime's body about 100 yards from Kelly's home. The Mexican man reportedly had one gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kelly was arrested and transported to Santa Cruz County Jail and has been charged with first-degree, premeditated murder. During his arraignment, Kelly said to the judge "I'm not going anywhere. I can't come up with a million dollars," in response to his $1 million bail. He also worried about his wife as no one was with her "to take care of her, the livestock or the ranch."
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