Phoenix man suspected of political terrorism caps controversial 2024 cycle

Shots were fired at the empty office of the president of the Democratic Party. Mini trap political signs were built and placed around. The next day, Jeffrey Kelly left the house without his cell phone. According to authorities, this was a sign that he did not want his location tracked.

The authorities did not risk stopping him. They deployed a device called a grappler, which threw a net over the car’s rear wheel, immobilizing it. Agents and officers pounced on him.

Inside his SUV, law enforcement officers found various weapons. That led them to believe, according to the court filing, that he was on his way to do something terrible. Court documents referred to an unfinished “mass casualty.”

Kelly was was detained on Wednesday and was ordered to spend on a Bail is $1 million in cash. He faces numerous charges, including three counts of making false threats of terrorismincluding gunfire and marks designed to cut anyone who tried to remove them.

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

This comes during a month that began with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issuing a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning of potential domestic terrorists harboring “election-related grievances, such as perceptions of election fraud or anger at potential political opponents “.

The arrest took place in a state that is one of the few considered to be in the presidential race. In October, the Phoenix area saw a parade of candidates and surrogates, including presidential candidates, vice presidential candidates, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz, as well as former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

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

This happened while authorities were still pursuing cases related to the 2020 elections. In October 2024, the sentencing of people convicted of sending online threats to Arizona election officials during the previous US presidential election was completed.

It came as millions of Phoenix-area residents prepared to mail in their ballots early or planned to vote in person. Those ballots will be dropped off at the election headquarters south of downtown Phoenix, where security gates are in place and fabric on fences prevents spectators from seeing into the parking lot.

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

“We hope that people will find civilized ways to resolve their differences,” he said, “and that the days before and after our election will be peaceful.”

Detective: Kelly’s actions had to be visible, to inspire fear

A field office for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign opened in July but didn’t seem to attract much attention. There was no sign that this was a Democratic Party operation. Its door was under a sign advertising a barbershop in the same Tempe Square.

Looking through the window, you could see Harris campaign posters tacked to the wall. It’s unclear whether Jeffrey Kelly looked that closely before launching what authorities called a campaign of fear.

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

The office was empty. Authorities said Kelly’s intent was not to hurt anyone, but to intimidate Democrats working inside.

And by mid-October, he had developed a new plan for how to do it.

Kelly set up a makeshift sign factory in his backyard, authorities said. There he created political signs, some of which were designed to mimic the fonts and colors of those made during actual campaigns.

According to authorities, he hooked blades around some of the signs. They did not directly indicate the reason in the documents. But if someone tries to remove the sign and grabs it without seeing the blades, that person’s hands could be cut.

According to the authorities, bags of powder were placed on the backs of some of the signs. Next to these packages were obscene handwritten notes warning that the substance was biohazardous. The baking powder came out.

The intent was not to poison anyone, authorities said. But for people to be afraid.

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

At Kelly’s house, located in the well-kept foothills of Awatukee, federal agents found a cache of weapons. They began taking inventory of his outdoor garage and shed Wednesday morning before loading them into the van. Court documents say 120 weapons of various types were found.

Kelly’s attorney 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 connections were built on the premise that authorities had stopped “a 9/11 event in the making.”

Squires said the terrorism charges resulted from a simpler act: posting the signs. “All the charges are related to the signs,” he said. “No one was hurt, thank God.”

Psychologist: “It doesn’t take many people to create problems”

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

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

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

It’s not clear when Kelly, who his attorney says was a competitive shooter and “sportsman,” amassed his arsenal.

Hicks said another indicator of the population buying guns in the pandemic era is higher education and higher income. “Guns are expensive,” Hicks said.

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

“You can find people like that who will commit some kind of terrorist act,” Hicks said. “You don’t need a lot of people to cause this kind of trouble.”

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

Authorities released some of the facts they found during a search of his home in court filings. This is usually a preliminary filing that gives the judge enough information to keep the suspect in custody. In this case, that information led to two $500,000 cash bonds that had to be posted for Kelly’s release.

More evidence will be presented in court. As does Kelly’s attorney, who makes his case.

Until then, Arizona and the United States will have contested presidential elections and their aftermath to contend with.

Contact the reporter at [email protected].