Free Republic

On January 30, 2023, Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly, 75, was arrested and charged with the murder of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea. Cuen-Buitimea was crossing the border from his hometown of Nogales, Mexico, with a group of seven other illegal immigrants donning camouflage attire and rifles. One of the illegal immigrants said the squad of armed men crossed the border into the United States to look for work but scattered after seeing Border Patrol agents. Shortly thereafter, Kelly became aware of the group. He was making lunch when he heard a single gunshot and then noticed five of the men crossing through...

Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) supports legislation that, if passed into law, would prohibit Arizonans from buying AR-15 rifles. Gallego highlights his gun control support on his campaign website, although he does not go into the specifics of what his proposed policies would do if enacted. For example, the campaign website mentions Gallego’s time as a U.S. Marine and his use of a gun with full-auto function. “Carrying and using his M16 to defend himself and his fellow Marines in Iraq made it clear to Ruben that weapons of war have no place in civilian life,” it...

Excerpt: 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.

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. - An apartment complex was evacuated Monday morning in Prescott Valley after a fire sparked at a building under construction. Police say the fire broke out on the south side of Florentine Road at Main Street. "The 685,000-square-foot building/parking lot structure that was under construction was completely engulfed in flames and is a complete loss," Prescott Valley PD said.

John-Robert Rodríguez moved to Culdesac, a car-free community in Arizona, in October 2023. He's never liked driving and believes that fewer cars can foster more community. Life at Cudesac is great, but he still has to deal with the car-dependent world outside its gates. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with John-Robert Rodríguez, 24, a teacher in Tempe, Arizona, who lives in the car-free community Culdesac. Rodríguez moved to Culdesac, which has about 150 residents so far but will eventually house 1,000 residents in 760 units, in October 2023 from Pflugerville, Texas, after growing up in Florida. The...

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - Law enforcement came under fire on the fourth day of testimony in the murder trial of George Alan Kelly. The defense for the Santa Cruz County rancher accused of murder said deputies did not search Kelly’s property thoroughly before they left only for Kelly to then report finding the body of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea. Kelly is accused of fatally shooting Buitimea on Jan. 30, 2023. Deputies who responded to Kelly’s ranch that afternoon performed a cursory search, but Kelly’s defense questioned if they could have found Buitimea’s body before Kelly did later. In the courtroom onThursday,...

Mexico can continue to sue five Arizona gun businesses over criminal gun trafficking through the southern border, a federal judge ruled Monday. US District Judge Rosemary Marquez denied the firearms dealers’ request to have the case dismissed under the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). She rejected claims that the statute, which generally prohibits lawsuits against the gun industry for crimes committed by third parties, barred Mexico’s allegations that the gun dealers’ sales practices helped fuel criminal violence south of the border. She found Mexico met the bar to carry on with some of its claims, such...

The number of Border Patrol encounters with illegal aliens in Texas continued to plunge in February, thanks to the effectiveness of Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. Meanwhile, encounters spiked again in California and Arizona, where Democrat governors are in charge, as illegal aliens increasingly turned their focus to more welcoming borders. Through Operation Lone Star, Gov. Abbott has installed wire fencing at the border, deployed floating border barriers and called out the Texas National Guard to deter illegal immigration. And his efforts have been successful. Through the first five months of Fiscal Year 2024 (Oct.-Feb.), the number of...

State Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu) and State Senator Wendy Rogers (R-Flagstaff) held a press conference on Wednesday revealing that a cybersecurity expert discovered that voting machine software used in Maricopa County’s elections in 2020 and 2022 was compromised. Borrelli said “there is probable cause” of a crime, and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell has been notified. Borrelli said, “A few days ago I received documentation and a sworn declaration by a cybersecurity expert that examined the data from the 2020 and 2022 elections, where it has been determined that the data and the equipment had been altered....

South American “crime tourists” who exploit the US visa system to enter the country and commit burglaries have now infiltrated at least half the states in America and taken “millions of untraceable” goods, The Post has learned. The organized groups of burglars and jewel thieves, particularly from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, have been targeting wealthy homes across the US for decades, but their crimes have spread — and recently soared in some cities, authorities say. “They travel to cities across the nation – including in Maricopa County – and steal millions in untraceable items,” said Maricopa County Attorney Rachel...

A legal battle has begun in Nogales, Arizona, that captures the essence of the nation’s border crisis. A 75-year-old rancher is facing charges of second-degree murder and aggravated assault after he fatally shot Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, a 48-year-old illegal immigrant who passed through his property while trying to gain entry into the country. The incident, which occurred on January 30, 2023, has garnered national attention amid the wider debate over immigration.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...

<p>PHOENIX (AP) — A businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring with the leader of an offshoot polygamous sect near the Arizona-Utah border to transport underage girls across state lines, making him the first man to be convicted in what authorities say was a scheme to orchestrate sexual acts involving children.</p>

Despite the 2022 Supreme Court ruling, people are losing their property over tax bills that amount to a fraction of their home value and the built up equity. TUCSON, Ariz.—Horses taught Christine Searle the importance of being fair. Intelligent and innately honest creatures, horses know deceit when they see it. She wishes they could teach that principle to the state of Arizona. The 70-year-old horse trainer and Arizona native is on the verge of losing her life’s savings over an unpaid $1,607.68 property tax bill. “I owed them the money. And that’s what they should get—the money I owe them,”...

As a battleground state in our national political contests, Arizona is also ground zero in the fight over the future of higher education in America. Higher-ed-reform advocates have notched several victories in Arizona recently, but the forces in favor of the status quo have stubbornly resisted many of these efforts, leaving much still to be done. Effective and lasting reform will require either a significant course correction by the state’s universities themselves, or else the direct intervention of the Arizona legislature or the Arizona Board of Regents (or both) to exercise more aggressive oversight, especially regarding curriculum and employment. For...

President Biden on Tuesday wandered off stage, beelined toward a baby and sat in the crowd as he was being introduced at a campaign event in Phoenix. “Well, folks, I have to tell you straight up,” the 81-year-old president told his supporters after venturing back on-stage.“I like you all, but I couldn’t resist that little baby.” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez – the granddaughter of labor icon César Chávez – was about a minute into her brief opening remarks when the president bolted from the stage. Biden continued to sit in the booth next to the mother holding her...

March 14-17, N=600. TWO-WAY: Trump 46, Biden 42. FOUR-WAY: Trump 37, Biden 33, RFK Jr 18, Cornel West 2.

Migrants entering the U.S. through breaches in border walls in Arizona continue, as more than 320,000 have been encountered so far this fiscal year. A video shows migrants taking selfies after successfully traveling from Mexico to Arizona. More than 10,000 migrants were apprehended in the Tucson Sector during the past week, according to an unofficial Border Patrol report posted on social media by Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin. In a video published by Fox News a large group of migrants are seen entering through a breach in the wall.

The former elections director for a rural Arizona county who resigned last year because of a flap over the hand-counting of ballots has been elevated to a top electoral post for the state. Lisa Marra left her job in southeastern Arizona’s largely Republican Cochise County last year after she refused to follow the directives of the area’s two GOP supervisors who wanted a hand count of ballots cast in the 2022 election. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, in recent days appointed Marra as the state’s elections director. She had been a state assistant elections director since 2023....

Scottsdale police said the three suspects arrested over the last few days came into the country on the Visa Waiver Program.. SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Three people from South America arrested in Scottsdale have been accused of breaking into homes in the East Valley as part of a professional crime ring based in Chile. "These are professionals," Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther said during a news conference Tuesday. "These are Chilean burglary crews that are coming into the country on a Visa Waiver Program." The department used helicopters and drones to search neighborhoods near Pima and Jomax roads after it was...