How False Claims of a ‘Full Gang Takeover’ Brought Trump to Aurora Colorado Newsline

At Friday’s meeting, Trump will be joined by Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Windsor and conservative Aurora City Councilor Danielle Jurinsky, whose false claims of a “complete gang takeover” of the city by the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua played a major role in attracting the attention of right-wing national media in late August.

Aurora’s Republican mayor, former U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, responded to news of Trump’s visit this week by calling the former president’s claims “grossly exaggerated.” For months, Aurora Police Department officials have maintained that TdA’s presence in the community is “isolated” and small compared to other gangs operating in the Denver metro area. They said last month that they had identified 10 suspected TdA members operating in Aurora, and that at least seven were in custody as of September 26.

Shortly after Jurinksy’s claims appeared on Fox News and in the New York Post, interest in the story was sparked by the spread of a viral 15-second video clip captured by a doorbell camera at an Aurora apartment complex showing a group of armed men could be seen knocking on the door of a neighboring apartment and entering the unit. It remains unclear what exactly the video shows, and Aurora police have declined to comment on the details of the incident, citing an ongoing investigation.

Aurora tenants dispute claims of gang takeover, protest against ‘cottage house’ owner

In the days after last month’s national media storm, tenants of the apartment complex acknowledged what appeared to be a burglary attempt or other criminal act captured on the viral video, but rejected claims that a gang had taken control of their buildings or was shaking. offer residents for rent.

Based on receipts of their rent payments, photos of piles of trash and dead mice caught in traps in their apartments, tenants blamed the buildings’ problems on long-term habitability problems caused by the neglect of a “slum landlord” owner. They were far less afraid of any gang, they said, than they were of threats of vigilante violence and rumors on social media, such as one claiming that the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was headed to their neighborhood. One resident showed reporters text messages they had received containing violent racist threats against “you damn animals.”

“There is no one charging a fee to live here, no one is threatening us,” Sarimar Marin, a tenant at one of the apartment complexes, told Newsline in an interview last month. “There are only working families and good people living here.”

Anti-Trump protesters are expected to demonstrate outside the Gaylord resort during Friday’s rally. Later in the day, a coalition of Colorado immigrant rights groups plans to hold a press conference in Aurora to push back on what they call “attempts by extremists to spread hate and scapegoat immigrants” and organize a “Fiesta del Barrio ‘ to organize to celebrate this. immigrant communities of the city.

“Anti-immigrant forces are spreading dangerous, racist lies about members of the Aurora community instead of meeting the real needs of our communities,” Will Dempster, vice president of strategic communications at the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement Thursday. declaration. “Our communities are not political pawns or scapegoats, and we care for each other regardless of where we were born, the color of our skin or how much money we have. There is no place for anti-immigrant hatred in Colorado.”

From rumor to debate phase

The first unconfirmed claims of gang activity at the three Aurora properties at the center of the controversy appeared in a private report prepared by a Denver law firm that conducted an investigation into one of the properties on behalf of the mortgage company, which was shared with city officials. in July.

All three properties were owned by New York-based CBZ Management and had suffered years of city code violations for a wide range of habitability issues. Living conditions in one of the buildings were so poor that they even made local headlines as early as 2021, two years before large numbers of migrants arrived in the Denver metro area.

In early August, as Aurora made plans to condemn one of the properties, a publicist hired by CBZ Management contacted local media to claim that the TdA gang had “taken over several communities in the Denver area ‘ and ‘had left residents and buildings behind’. owners … in a state of fear and chaos,” according to an email obtained by the New York Times.

“The problems in this building certainly precede any problems with Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said on August 9, when the rumors started circulating. “The problems even preceded the migrant crisis.”