Prosecutor: Arizona border rancher shot at unarmed migrants

The prosecutor in the first-degree murder case against an Arizona rancher accused of killing a Mexican man on his land last month has alleged that the rancher that day opened fire on a group of about eight unarmed people — migrants who had entered the U.S. illegally

By ANITA SNOW - Associated Press Feb 22, 2023 Updated 1 hr ago









By ANITA SNOW - Associated Press

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 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.

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.

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Kelly's ranch.



Kelly's Lab with Kelly.



"The man Kelly is believed to have shot is Gabriel Cuen-Butimea, 48, a Mexican national. He denied shooting Cuen-Butimea"