Police suppress media hype over Venezuelan gang affair in Aurora

AURORA | Governor Jared Polis on Thursday expressed doubts about the extent of alleged Venezuelan gang violence in Aurora. He criticized Aurora’s elected city officials for spreading false news and urged them not to stoke public fear.

“He really hopes that the city council members in charge will stop destroying their own city when they should be keeping it safe,” Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement to the sentry.

Both Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and Councilman Daniel Jurinsky have been on the national right-wing media over the past two days, making a variety of comments and accusations.

“We know that violent crime in Aurora declined between 2022 and 2023, and we expect the data for 2024 to continue to decline,” Polis said in a statement. “The recent disinformation campaign threatens actual criminal investigations and could harm the small business environment in Aurora.”

Weiman said Polis has been in regular contact with various law enforcement agencies about the potential threat posed by suspected members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang also known as TdA. The group’s reported presence in the city has made national headlines on Fox News and other national media outlets in recent days and has sparked viral, heaven-is-collapsing conversations on conservative social media.

Meanwhile, Aurora police remain silent on the alarming claims made by Jurinsky, Coffman and Aurora Republican congressional candidate John Fabbricatore, leaving the public wondering what is true about the potential gang threat and what amounts to political swagger promoting an anti-immigration narrative.

“We don’t know if we should pack our bags and get out of here or if this is one of those hoax-type things,” said Mia Lucero, a neighbor of one of the apartment complexes TdA has reportedly flooded in northwest Aurora. the sentry Thursday.

Jurinsky and Fabbricatore began stoking fears about Venezuelan migrants and gang members on social media earlier this summer. Their cries grew louder when they exaggerated the crowd size and level of violence at a gathering of Venezuelan migrants in a shopping mall parking lot in Aurora on July 28, the day of Venezuela’s disputed presidential election. Their alarm bells were raised earlier this month when Aurora closed an apartment complex with Venezuelan residents for health and safety code violations that the landlord had long ignored.

The APD did not comment on the level of threat posed by TdA, saying only that it is part of a regional task force of local and federal officials that investigates organized crime and urges the public — including Venezuelans — to report gang activity.

“I don’t think Venezuelan gangs pose a significant security risk in the city of Aurora,” Chris Juul, the acting deputy police chief, told the Sentinel earlier this month referred to reported incidents as isolated.

However, the department has failed to answer basic questions about the trio’s claims, most recently about an apartment complex at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street called Edge at Lowry.

For a video crew from Denver Fox affiliate KDVR Channel 31, Jurinsky and Fabbricatore helped a woman, Cindy Romero, move out of the complex on Wednesday because of what she described as violence and intimidation by TdA. Romero’s son gave the station surveillance footage he said he captured of what he, the police and the station allege shows gang members climbing the stairs of his mother’s building with long guns and handguns in hand. Another clip appears to show men kicking down an apartment door, possibly in the same building.

The APD has not disclosed whether the authenticity of the video has been verified, when it was taken, or whether any laws were broken or arrests were made in connection with the incident.

The police also did not respond to the sentryi am questions about Jurinsky’s claims that TdA is “overdue”“ apartment complexes in Aurora, locking out property managers and requiring tenants to pay their rent directly to the gang, extorting residents and leaving the APD unable to control the situation.

The department — whose new chief Todd Chamberlain has said he is not familiar with TdA — also would not provide police records related to the apartment complex. Chamberlain will be the department’s seventh chief in five years and has promised transparency once he is sworn in on Sept. 9.

About Fabbricatore and Jurinsky’s camera action to help Romero move out of her apartment on Wednesday, Fabbricatore said the sentry that Aurora police “showed up with about five cars“ to protect and guide them.

“I think Danielle called them on the way. I think Danielle gave them a heads up. Knowing that there was going to be an Aurora councilman there, they thought the best solution was to put a couple of cars there,“ he said.

Among other things, APD has not answered questions about why the police would act as bodyguards for a council member and a woman it selected to help move, and whether the police offered similar services to all residents of the complex.

The department also failed to provide documents about the buildings as requested.

Fabbricatore, a retired ICE agent, describes TdA’s presence in Aurora as “huge,“ and calls it “a shock to the system that these kinds of things are happening in America.”“ He regrets that some skeptics doubt the threat posed to Aurora by the influx of Venezuelan migrants over the past two years.

“There are still people on X who don’t believe the video is real,“ he said. “They were speaking Spanish in the video. Like someone went outside and found a bunch of Venezuelan guys and put guns in their hands? That’s bullshit.“

Fabbricatore lashed out at U.S. Congressman Jason Crow, the incumbent he is challenging for a seat in the 6th Congressional District in November, for Crow’s failure to address the violence he sees among Venezuelans.

“He ignores his district. He has become part of the elite of DC. And when he is called upon to say something about this, he says nothing.“

Crow’s spokesperson declined to comment on Fabbricatore’s allegations at the time of going to press.

Coffman, a former Republican congressman and outspoken critic of U.S. immigration policy, has kept relatively quiet about possible Venezuelan gang activity in the city he has ruled since 2019 until Thursday when he appeared on national Fox News, whose host fanned the flames of the threat in Aurora.

Coffman hesitated Thursday. He confirmed that a gang had “taken over” a few apartment complexes in the city, but he wouldn’t say they were actually part of TdA.

He tried to temper the picture of mass lawlessness Fox painted of Aurora by saying, “It’s certainly not the whole city“ and that the leader of the TdA in Colorado — a figure Jurinsky and conservative news organizations have dubbed “Cookie Monster”“ – has been arrested and is in police custody.

Still, Coffman agreed with the Fox host that “it’s very serious nonetheless.”“ en: ‘It’s a terrible situation.’

Hours later, after Polis publicly criticized him, Coffman tempered his message on 9News’ NEXT, calling the descriptions of the problem “an incredible exaggeration.”“

“We’re in a kind of hysterical environment about this. It’s a real problem. It’s being addressed. It’s isolated,“ he told reporter Kyle Clark.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said Fox News and other reporters completely misrepresented the magnitude of what he also called isolated incidents.

Coffman said Aurora “did everything we could to honestly“ Venezuelan migrants “out of the city,” and suggested that the federal government nevertheless work with local nonprofits, behind the city’s back, to “get them there.”“ He went on to say that the flow of migrants is “not our problem,“ but rather a federal problem.

“They have to solve it, not us. But somehow we got sucked into this,“ he said.

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