An Arizona rancher went on trial Friday in the fatal shooting of a migrant on his property near Mexico, with his defense attorney maintaining his innocence as the national debate over border security heats up ahead of this year’s presidential election.
George Alan Kelly, 75, has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of a man he encountered on his property outside Nogales, Arizona. The jury trial in Santa Cruz County Superior Court is expected to last up to a month until around April 19, with proceedings held four days a week with Mondays off.
Kelly had earlier rejected a plea deal that would have reduced the charge to one count of negligent homicide if he pleaded guilty. His case has garnered the sympathy of some on the political right, with several efforts raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense, including several on the GoFundMe platform that were quickly shut down because of the charges against him.
He was arrested and charged last year in the Jan. 30, 2023, fatal shooting of 48-year-old Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea of adjacent Nogales, Mexico, just south of the border.
I don’t really see any difference between a migrant on your property and any other human being. If it’s fair game to shoot migrants, it should be fair game to shoot the Christian fundamentalists and Mormons knocking on my door.
Exactly, how did he supposedly identify them as migrants without talking to them?
Yeah, pretty sure that’s the plan for most of them.
Republican Rep. Justin Heap says his bill would apply the law to farmers and ranchers using deadly force against trespassers on their land, not just in their home.
I just have a hard time believing anyone wants to live like this. Everyone aiming guns at each other waiting for the slimiest justification to open fire and whomever survives claims self-defense.
“His case has garnered the sympathy of some on the political right, with several efforts raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense”
I hate this country.
Also, I’m really puzzled that this walking maga stereotype used a Russian weapon to attempt to murder an entire group of brown people. You’d think a guy like this would consider that “commie” shit. These types make as much sense as religious nuts.
Wow. Just… wow
They should try the Nitrogen mask on him.
If someone shows complete lack of empathy and kills other humans like this, why should we have empathy for him?
All he has to do is cry some Rittenhouse tears.
I’d be curious what the migrant was doing on his property and how the castle doctrine laws in Arizona come into play.
It’s in the posted article:
Kelly shot at a group of unarmed migrants who were walking through his nearly 170-acre (69-hectare) cattle ranch in the Kino Springs area, and Cuen-Buitimea was among them, authorities said.
He was walking.
Guy fired an ak-47 into a group of unarmed men walking towards the border on his huge plot of land and killed one of them.
Still justified to you?
Just say you think the migrant did it. You are almost there.
He’s a white guy arrested for killing a non-white.
It wasn’t self defense.
Sounds more like you heard an undesirable got shot with a cool gun and are wondering what the official conservative take is.
Obviously they can’t go with “he was a legal gun owner and a complete cunt and he killed someone because he wanted to, not because he was forced to” – it’s not profitable enough.
Being able to kill anyone (who’s clearly not a threat) touching your property, without any repercussions, is the most barbaric, feudalist weirdest shit I’ve ever heard of. This type of shit doesn’t belong to a supposedly developed country. It belongs to medieval vikings.
Why are you curious, do you think he might have been doing something that deserved an extrajudicial execution?
You mean that you are jealous and wish you could do it too.
