Well, they’ll probably get another shot at it anyway, because this rancher seems delusional and violent as hell so he’s probably going to kill some more people before too long

In real life, Kelly also seemed to see himself as a grizzled hero in the Clint Eastwood mold, doing battle against a criminal enterprise. Three weeks before the shooting, he texted a friend, “OVERUN WITH DRUG CARTEL. AK GTN A LOT OF WORK.” A week after that, he exchanged messages with his son Matt:

Alan Kelly: 33 DRUG RUNNERS THIS WK…AK 47 HOT.WANNA B BACK UP?

Matt Kelly: Nope ✋. Be careful.

Alan Kelly: CAREFUL IS NOT AN OPTION. IT IS EITHER FIGHT OR RUN AND IM TO OLD TO RUN. MOM IS L NL [locked and loaded] ALSO.

Kelly seemed baffled, at times even wounded, that law enforcement saw things differently. Investigators found no drugs or weapons on Cuen-Buitimea’s body. In his backpack, he’d carried cans of tuna, tissues, and extra clothing, including a hoodie that read “Treat People with Kindness.” He also had a radio on his belt—evidence that, according to the defense team, he’d possibly served as a scout or a guide. A photograph on his phone showed him standing on a ridge with binoculars around his neck. Larkin and Lowthorp spun this into lurid theories involving rip crews, cartel hits, and fentanyl trafficking. The prosecution offered a countervailing archetype: Cuen-Buitimea as a man seeking, as they repeatedly put it, “the American Dream.”

…

When Ramirez eventually testified, through a court interpreter, he painted a picture of migration that was more muddled, and less cinematic, than the attorneys’ narratives. In the course of several years, he had illegally crossed into the U.S. eight or ten times, paying around twenty-five hundred dollars on most occasions. Once, in lieu of the fee, he’d carried marijuana with him. Each time, he’d been caught and deported back to Mexico. Last year, he and Cuen-Buitimea decided to make another attempt, with the goal of settling in Phoenix and getting roofing and construction jobs. They joined a group led by a man Ramirez knew only as El Cholo. They crossed into the U.S. without incident, but after an hour and a half of walking through the desert they encountered the Border Patrol. As the group scattered, the two men stuck together. When Cuen-Buitimea and Ramirez paused to catch their breath, Ramirez heard shots, then saw his friend fall. He ran back across the border into Mexico. “I was throwing up because I was so nervous,” Ramirez testified. “I was vomiting and vomiting and vomiting.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20240430115704/https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/what-george-kellys-mistrial-says-about-how-we-see-the-border