An Arizona man arrested after a series of attacks on a Democratic National Committee office may have been planning a ‘mass casualty event’ authorities say.
Jeffrey Michael Kelly, 60, was arrested on Tuesday night by Tempe Police and charged with multiple felony counts, including unlawful discharge of a firearm, shooting at a non-residential structure and committing an act of terrorism, and three misdemeanor counts of criminal discharge, authorities said.
When FBI agents searched his home Wednesday morning, they found at least 120 guns, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, body armor, a grenade launcher and dummy grenades. They also found guns in his car, including a fully automatic weapon, according to reports.
“The state and law enforcement believe that this person was preparing to commit an act of mass casualty with the guns he had, and that his progression of violence was escalating,” Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Neha Bhatia said at Kelly’s initial court appearance Wednesday.
Investigators also accused Kelly of posting anti-Democratic signs in the area near his home in Ahwatukee, a suburb southeast of Phoenix, Tempe Police Chief Kenneth McCoy said at a press conference Wednesday. The signs boasted a wide-range of anti-Democrat messages, from “Never Harris” to “Dems Kill Jews,” photos by AZ Family reveal.
Kelly also attached clear plastic baggies with a white substance and labelled them: “biohazard”, police said. The substance inside was ultimately determined to be non-hazardous.
His arrest came after police reported three shootings in a matter of weeks at the DNC Tempe office building. The first incident occurred on September 16 followed by another on September 23. The most recent incident occurred on October 6, when the building was damaged by BB Gun and firearm rounds, authorities said at the time. All of these incidents occurred between midnight and 1am, police said.
The DNC office includes space for the Kamala Harris campaign, the Arizona Democratic Party, and campaigns for Democratic House and Senate candidates
Chief McCoy said investigators linked Kelly to a 2022 incident in which he stole Democratic campaign signs after they noticed the same silver SUV was used in the DNC attacks.
“We were losing all of them, especially in the Ahwatukee area,” Paul Weich, a former candidate for Arizona’s 12th Legislative district, told 12News.
This prompted Weich’s supporters to hire a private investigator to look into what was happening to the signs. Weich’s campaign account later posted a video of the investigator’s findings: a man exited from his silver SUV, repeatedly slashed one of Weich’s campaign signs before grabbing it and putting it into his car.
“We knew that, yes, this is the same guy because last night we went back and looked in the archives from the private investigator’s report,” Weich told the outlet.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell denounced political violence.
“It is our duty to uphold justice and democracy,” she said. “This means speaking out against political violence and those who seek to intimidate or harm voters or people who are participating in the political process.”
She said her office had requested a $1 million cash-only bond, but the judge set a $500,000 cash-only bond and ordered electronic monitoring.
These allegations come after a barrage of political violence incidents leading up to the hotly contested 2024 election.
Donald Trump has faced two assassination attempts in the past few months. The first occurred on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania when shots were fired at the former president during a rally. While he suffered a wound to his ear, one spectator died and others were injured. The Secret Service killed the shooter at the scene.
Two months later in September, a man was camped outside the former president’s West Palm Beach golf course with an assault rifle, waiting for Trump to pass by. A Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of the gun poking through a fence at a spot a few hundred yards away from the former president.
