AURORA, Colo. — Some Aurora City Council members insist that areas within the city are under the control of a Venezuelan gang, as police and Aurora’s mayor urge them to sort fact from fiction.
The flashpoint of the conflict is the impending closure of an apartment building near Nome and Colfax. The city of Aurora and Mayor Mike Coffman said the unprecedented action by the city is the result of years of dangerous code violations.
Some of Coffman’s fellow conservatives on Aurora City Council, which is elected in nonpartisan municipal elections, said they don’t believe the city.
“We have a Venezuelan gang problem that has taken over a number of our apartment complexes,” Aurora City Councilman Steve Sundberg said at a Thursday meeting.
The claim has been widely promoted by anonymous, far-right social media accounts. The city of Aurora said the apartment building being closed is not under the control of a gang.
Councilmembers Stephanie Hancock and Danielle Jurinsky expressed similar concerns, rejecting assurances from Aurora Police and Mayor Coffman that gang activity was being investigated.
“This is what we believe,” Jurinsky said. “Our opinions are not up for debate. This is our belief. The three of us believe that there is a gang problem, a huge gang problem, that apartment complexes and areas of our city are being taken over.”
Coffman said that Aurora Police have recently formed a task force to investigate the presence of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.
APD Deputy Chief Chris Juul told City Council that “there is some influence” from Tren de Aragua, known as TDA, in the city.
Juul said that Aurora Police are working with state and federal law enforcement to determine which crimes might be tied to TDA.
“We don’t know that all the information that’s publicly out there right now is correct,” Juul said. “It’s probably not.”
The city of Aurora said the impending closure of the apartment building operated by CBZ Management near Colfax and Nome is due to years of neglect by the landlord, not gang activity.
“We’ve been working with this building and its owners for a very long time,” Coffman told Next. “They’re out-of-state slumlords, and they haven’t maintained the building.”
The city of Aurora said CBZ Management property manager Zev Baumgarten faces a trial on 99 counts in Aurora Municipal Court in late August.
The New York-based property owners have enlisted a Florida-based public relations firm to contact journalists to make the case that the issue is the Venezuelan gang, not their neglect.
In addition to the three conservative city council members, the landlord has a defender and de-facto spokesperson in Republican congressional candidate John Fabbricatore, the retired ICE Field Office Director running against incumbent Democratic Rep. Jason Crow.
On Wednesday, the landlord’s PR firm said that Fabbricatore would speak for them, while the landlord wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
Fabbricatore said the city didn’t want to arrest “illegal aliens” because of “bad optics,” and he said the property owner had invested in improving the building.
Councilwoman Jurinksy also alleged without evidence that a July 28 mass gathering of thousands at a shopping center parking lot was also tied to the TDA gang. The large group assembled as Venezuelan election results were released.
“They’re here. We know they’re here,” Jurinksy said. “We think this was a test.”
Mayor Coffman urged his colleagues not to conflate a violent gang with thousands of Venezuelan immigrants and others in Aurora who gathered to celebrate the expected fall of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
Coffman told Next that was especially problematic given the city’s need for Venezuelan immigrants to come forward with information about gang activity so its extent can be determined.
"These are Venezuelan gang members within the Venezuelan community, which is new to our area,” Coffman said. “There's a fear factor in terms of trying to get the cooperation among these Venezuelan migrants to report that they're being victimized.”
