Federal agents on Wednesday morning hauled more than 120 firearms, including “machine guns,” out of the Ahwatukee Foothills home of a man suspected of shooting at a campaign office for the Democratic Party three times and posting bags of white powder labeled as poison near political signs.
Jeffrey Michael Kelly, 60, was arrested on Tuesday night near his Ahwatukee Foothills home by Tempe police who, according to court documents, used surveillance footage to find the suspect.
Phoenix attorney Paul Weich told The Republic he was running as a Democrat for state representative in Legislative District 12 in 2022 when he had a run-in with Kelly. Prompted by several hundred dollars’ worth of his campaign signs going missing in June 2022, Weich hired an investigator who he said found surveillance video catching Kelly in the act.
…
Despite evidence pointing to Kelly as the perpetrator, Weich said law enforcement did not move to arrest him. Weich said that Phoenix police feared that approaching Kelly would pose a threat to their safety. A prosecutor out of the Phoenix City Attorney’s Office declined to pursue charges, Weich said.
If you are a cop afraid to confront a criminal, isn’t that what special units are for? Like wtf are we giving SWAT teams tanks for if they can’t deal with this?
They also could just arrest him when he left his house for beers or whatever. They dont have to no knock him like he’s “sleeping while black” or anything.
proof that phoenix police are cowards… they freakin admit it outright
No, they just agree with the shooter.
How about both?
This guy seems dangerous. We should probably just leave him alone.
Despite evidence pointing to Kelly as the perpetrator, Weich said law enforcement did not move to arrest him. Weich said that Phoenix police feared that approaching Kelly would pose a threat to their safety.
That’s literally their job. They aren’t going to send regular officers to that shit. There are teams specifically trained for those situations. Whoever made that decision should be fired and blacklisted from ever working as an officer again. But we know nothing will happen about it.
Seems like those cops went to the same school as the Uvalde piss babies.
Sorry, we can’t keep you safe, we’re too scared.
I do wish they’d stop citing weapons caches when making arrests. Just as many shootings are done by people with access to a single firearm as are done by people with over a hundred weapons.
If there were crated assault rifles, that would be worth making a deal about… but people are allowed to collect weapons in the US, and that doesn’t suddenly change anything when a suspect is arrested.
It can sometimes speak to the suspect’s state of mind. A large number of historical firearms neatly displayed in a secured room is different from 2 dozen loaded AR-15s strewn about in every room of the house “in case BLM comes knocking.”
When you get to hundreds of guns it is quite often a situation of compulsive hoarding. Not necessarily criminal, but often careless (as leaving unsecured firearms around is careless), and indicative of mental health issues.
Neighbors describe this specimen as a “January-6-type-guy” and avoided him.
Speaking as someone with his own gun collection, weapon collecting will always be considered eccentric at best. You’re going to have to live with that stigma.
While I generally agree with the sentiment… The type of person to shoot up a political campaign office is a threat to their community and shouldn’t have access to firearms.
What are the odds that he had “hundreds of firearms” properly secured? I highly doubt all of these weapons were properly secured with locks, in a safe, etc. and not at risk of an unauthorized individual gaining access to them easily.
It gets the views up. Same with ‘including “machine guns”’ even tho there is no real evidence of that, just:
A reporter overheard mention of handguns being found in a master bathroom safe and the words “machine gun” and "silencers.”
“overheard mention” Top notch journalism.
To be fair, if the police aren’t providing additional info directly yet, what other reporting do you expect?
Not that what the police say is necessarily the truth about a situation either, anything they claim should be taken with at least a pinch of salt nowadays if not a whole salt lick.
Something verifiable would be nice.
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