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    • Phoenix man suspected of political terror caps contested 2024 cycle
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    Phoenix man suspected of political terror caps contested 2024 cycle

    Online Niel Posted on

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    Shots were fired at an empty Democratic presidential campaign office. Trap political signs were built and placed around the neighborhood. The next afternoon, Jeffrey Kelly left his home without his cell phone. It was a sign, authorities said, that he did not want his location tracked.

    The authorities took no chances when they stopped him. They used a device called a grappler that sent a net around the back tire of his vehicle, immobilizing it. Agents and officers descended on him.

    Inside his SUV, authorities found an assortment of weapons. He led them to believe, according to a court filing, that he was about to do something terrible. The court documents spoke of a “mass casualty event”.

    Kelly was arrested on Wednesday and it was ordered to hold on a $1 million cash bond. He faces several charges, including three counts of making false terroristic threatsinvolving the shots and marks that were designed to cut down anyone who tried to remove them.

    Kelly’s arrest came less than two weeks before the 2024 general election.

    It came in a month that began with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issuing a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning that potential domestic terrorists harbor “election-related grievances, such as perceptions of election fraud or anger toward by perceived political opponents”.

    The arrest occurred in a state that is one of the few considered at stake in the presidential race. The Phoenix area saw a parade of candidates and surrogates in October, including both presidential nominees, vice presidential nominees U.S. Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as well as former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

    Vice President Kamala Harris was in Phoenix on October 11th. Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Tempe on Thursday.

    It came while authorities were still pursuing cases related to the 2020 election. In October 2024, sentencing was completed for people convicted of sending online threats to Arizona election officials regarding the previous US presidential contest.

    It came as millions of Phoenix-area residents prepared to mail in early ballots or made plans to vote in person. Those ballots would be tabulated at a polling place south of downtown Phoenix, where security gates have been installed and fabric on fences prevents onlookers from seeing the parking lot.

    At a press conference on Wednesday that provided details of Kelly’s arrest, Tempe Police Chief Ken McCoy urged the public to remain vigilant. He expressed optimism that the elections would be held without violence.

    “We hope that people can find civil ways to resolve their differences,” he said, “and that the days leading up to and after our election are peaceful.”

    Detective: Kelly’s actions were meant to be highly visible, to instill fear

    The field office for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign opened in July, but it seemed designed not to attract attention. No signs indicated it was a Democratic Party operation. His door was under a sign advertising a barber shop in the same plaza in Tempe.

    Looking out the window, one could see Harris campaign signs taped to a wall. It is unclear whether Jeffrey Kelly looked closely before starting what authorities described as a campaign of fear.

    One night in September around midnight, police said, Kelly pointed the gun at the windows and glass door of his SUV and fired several times. A few days later, he would do it again. And then the third time.

    The office was empty. Authorities said Kelly’s intent wasn’t necessarily to hurt anyone, but to scare Democrats who worked inside.

    And by mid-October, he had hatched a new plan to do just that.

    Kelly created a makeshift sign factory in his backyard, authorities said. There he created political signs, some designed to mimic the fonts and colors of those made by real campaigns.

    Around some of the signs, he stuck utility blades, authorities said. They did not explicitly state the reason in the documents. But if someone tried to remove a sign and grabbed it without seeing the blades, that person’s hands could be cut off.

    Powder bags were placed on the backs of some of the signs, authorities said. Next to those bags were profane handwritten notes warning that the substance was a biohazard. It ended up being baking powder.

    The idea was not to poison anyone, authorities said. But to make people afraid.

    The actions were “strategically placed” to be highly visible, a detective wrote in a probable cause statement filed in court. It was clear, the document said, that Kelly was “trying to (instill) fear around the upcoming election.”

    In Kelly’s home, located in a well-kept Ahwatukee Foothills subdivision, federal agents found a cache of weapons. They began taking inventory in his open garage and carport Wednesday morning before loading them into a moving van. Court documents said they found 120 weapons of various types.

    A lawyer for Kelly denied all charges in court, describing his client, a retired aerospace engineer, as a borderline genius who had never been in trouble with the law before.

    “We all want to agree,” Kelly’s attorney, Jason Squires, said in court that “we want a safe, legal and fair election. We don’t want interference.” Squires said the charges against his client were exaggerated and the bond was built on the premise that authorities had stopped an “ongoing 9/11 event.”

    Squires said the terrorism charges were the result of a simpler act: displaying signs. “The charges are all about the signs,” he said. “No one was hurt, thank God.”

    Psychologist: “You don’t need a lot of people to cause trouble”

    A clinical psychologist at the University of Michigan, who has studied a link between gun purchases and individuals’ propensity for extreme thoughts, said Kelly seems to fit a pattern he has seen in his research.

    “There’s this group of right-wing people who collect guns and believe in these kinds of conspiracy theories about the government,” said researcher Brian Hicks, a professor in the department of psychiatry. “And they may have to take up arms against the government, depending on how the election goes.”

    Hicks began his research on gun ownership, based mostly on national online surveys, after seeing armed protesters march around the Michigan Capitol after the 2020 election. He said he saw a significant increase in conspiracy beliefs among those who bought guns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    It’s unclear when Kelly, who his lawyer said participated in shooting competitions and was a “sportsman,” amassed his arsenal.

    Hicks said another indicator of the population that bought guns during the pandemic was the highly educated and high-income. “Guns are expensive,” Hicks said.

    He said he was not worried about a “popular uprising” by armed civilians based on the election result, but said a single person could have a powerful effect on the national psyche.

    “You can get people like that who commit an act of terrorism,” Hicks said. “You don’t need many people to cause this kind of trouble.”

    Kelly seemed to be the kind of neighbor most people on his street avoided. A woman, who described herself as a friend of Kelly’s, declined to speak with Republic reporters. Others, who described him as somewhere between a quiet man and a strange recluse, did not want to be named.

    Authorities disclosed some of what they found in the search of his home in court filings. This is usually a preliminary file, which gives the judge enough information to hold a suspect in custody. In this case, that information led to two $500,000 cash-only bonds to be posted for Kelly’s release.

    More evidence will come in future court filings. So does Kelly’s lawyer arguing his side of the story.

    And until then, Arizona and the United States will have an entire contentious presidential election and its aftermath to contend with.

    Contact the reporter at [email protected].

    Online Niel
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