The left’s war on the right to self-defense suffered a high-profile setback on Monday. Prosecutors in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, decided to drop charges against George Alan Kelly after a deadlocked jury declined to convict the 75-year-old rancher on murder charges.
In heavily blue jurisdictions around the country, leftist prosecutors will side with outlaws while making examples of honest citizens who dare to take up arms to protect family or property. That’s why Mr. Kelly had been accused, on slim evidence, of shooting an intruder — an illegal immigrant — on his 170-acre cattle ranch a few hundred yards from the border with Mexico.
With the border wide open, the area near the rancher’s property has turned into a smuggling corridor for cartel gangs. Mr. Kelly says that on Jan. 30, 2023, he had just wrapped up his chores and was about to sit down for lunch with his wife when he saw from the kitchen window a group of rifle-toting bandits walking through the trees near his home.
The rancher phoned the Border Patrol for assistance. When he went to his porch to investigate, he heard a gunshot. Afraid of what might come next, the rancher grabbed his rifle and, in his account of events, he fired warning shots in the air until the bandits ran away.
Border Patrol agents arrived and searched the property, but they found nothing. Later that day, however, Mr. Kelly discovered the body of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea on his land, and again, he notified the cops right away.
The deceased was a criminal caught sneaking into the country on multiple occasions. He had been carrying an encrypted two-way radio and binoculars — useful tools for cartel scouts.
Prosecutors proposed an alternate version of events in which Mr. Kelly opened fire with an AK-47 on seven or eight illegal aliens that had just crossed the border with Mexico on an innocent stroll through Mr. Kelly’s land. The sole witness upholding this tale was a Honduran drug smuggler and human trafficker who had sneaked into the country alongside Cuen-Buitimea.
Taking the smuggler’s word at face value, prosecutors charged Mr. Kelly with murder along with aggravated assault for placing the Honduran “in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury” because Mr. Kelly pointed his rifle at him. The court set bail at $1 million.
Investigators produced no physical evidence linking the shot that killed Cuen-Buitimea to Mr. Kelly’s gun. It’s just as plausible to assume cartel members shot Cuen-Buitimea, robbed him, and dumped his body on the rancher’s property, hoping to land the pesky man in hot water.
Sheriff David Hathaway, an activist Democrat, discussed the case in a video suggesting the rancher had a desire to “hunt me some Mexicans." So, he had Mr. Kelly taken into custody, where he was browbeaten by detectives trying to force the man to confess to murder. He didn’t take the bait.
Prosecutors rested their case on a few inconsistencies in Mr. Kelly’s statements while crediting the smuggler’s account of events as perfectly accurate. We’ll never know what exactly happened that day, but thanks to this jury result, the right to self-defense remains.
Mr. Kelly can begin to put his life back together.
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