Aurora probe: Metro teen gang sold guns and drugs, responsible for area shootings

AURORA | At least four teenagers were arrested earlier this month on rare state organized crime charges in connection with several unsolved shootings in Aurora, and with shootings in Wheat Ridge and Lakewood.

An 84-page arrest report claims the young men may belong to an offshoot of the Bloods street gang. It alleges they waged a months-long crime spree throughout the Denver metro area marked by vendetta-driven assaults and random acts of violence that they chronicled, Gen Z style, on social media.

Those arrested include Xavier Chavez, 18, of Aurora; Lennon Melgares, 18, of Edgewater; Jayden Velarde, 18, of Morrison; and a 17-year-old Lakewood teenager whose name has been redacted from court documents because he is a minor. 

All four face charges of attempted first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, aggravated intimidation of a victim or witness and felony menacing, among others.

According to the arrest affidavit filed in Arapahoe District Court, Aurora police believe the teens were involved not only in three shootings between late February and late April of this year, but also a string of other unsolved shootings in Aurora, as well as guns sales and the sale and distribution of psilocybin mushrooms and fentanyl.

“Although APD has not identified a specific name for this group, they have committed acts of violence, drug trafficking, and firearms trafficking together to forward their joint criminal enterprise,” the report reads. 

Aurora police say the group has no connection to Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA — the Venezuelan prison gang that right-wing politicians, including Donald Trump, have been stoking fears about in Aurora and nationally this election season.

Aurora’s Crime Gun Intelligence Unit took the lead on an elaborate investigation in partnership with Wheat Ridge, Lakewood and Lakeside police departments. The probe involved analysis of bullet casings, what police describe as a “fake illegal firearm purchase” by an undercover officer, cell phone geo-location data and a long trail of pictures, videos, posts and messages via Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat in which suspects recorded themselves with an arsenal of weapons, large quantities of narcotics, piles of cash and what police call “other items of evidentiary value.”

Aurora police investigator Brent Maksyn wrote that he believes the group’s members use “violent episodes” and “videos depicting them committing violent and careless shootings to build clout and a reputation of a violent criminal enterprise.  which is used as a means of intimidation by visibly displaying their willingness to commit violent acts.”

One of the shootings took place Feb. 29 in Wheat Ridge when police say Chavez, Melgares and the unidentified minor suspect waited an hour and a half for a student to leave his high school, followed his car as he drove away, then pulled up beside him. Chavez allegedly walked up to the victim’s car window, drew a gun and fired at him in retaliation for comments the victim made about Chavez’s late father two years ago. The 17-year-old victim was not hit by the bullet. 

The arrest affidavit calls the shooting a “deliberate and premeditated attack on the victim… carried out by known and identified members of this organized criminal enterprise.” 

A second incident, on March 19, involved an assault inside and a shooting outside an AutoZone store in Lakewood. According to the report, Chavez, Melgares, Velarde and a fourth suspect, 18-year-old Antonio Lontine, targeted a young woman who previously dated an “associate” of Melgares and Chavez, as well as her current boyfriend and friend. A fight ensued in the store, and later, once the group was outside in the parking lot, one of the suspects allegedly fired a shotgun.

Police say the attack was premeditated and that the suspects continued “to intimidate the witnesses and victims related to this case by documented threats to kill, shoot, or physically harm” them in the days that followed. 

Ten days later, police pulled over Chavez’s car to find a fired shotgun hull, two fired rifle casings, and one fired 9mm casing that, according to the affidavit, is forensically linked to a third incident on April 29 when shots were fired at a home on the 1100 block of Victor Street in Aurora. Four people were in the house at the time, including a small child.

The affidavit says police have identified seven members of the alleged gang, “but this group is likely larger and comprised of additional unidentified members.” Partly because members have been seen wearing the color red, Maksyn surmises it is an offshoot of the Bloods street gang.

Hisreport describes Instagram posts showing Chavez, Malgares, Velarde and the unnamed minor in a bedroom in possession of a large caliber rifle, handguns, and large clear bags of psilocybin mushrooms. Police believe “this group commonly stashes large amounts of illegal or illicit narcotics and firearms at this location,” it reads.

Maksyn described “videos of members of this criminal enterprise actively training at marksmanship and in skills to move and shoot.” He also described videos showing them “firing firearms indiscriminately in populated urban areas, likely somewhere within the Denver Metropolitan Area.” 

One such video, posted on Facebook, shows an AR-15 style rifle being fired out of the passenger side window of a moving vehicle at what Maksyn wrote was the retaining wall for the RTD Light Rail train that runs along I-225 at East Mississippi Avenue in Aurora. It is unknown, he noted, “if a train was traveling on the tracks in this area at the time of this shooting since the video does not contain a date or time.”

The affidavit also includes a photograph depicting a shotgun and AR-15 rifle, and the letters “EBK” spelled out with live ammunition cartridges beside them. “EBK” stands for “Everybody Killer,” a term Maksyn indicated is used by gang members to signal that they will kill anyone regardless of gang affiliation. 

“This group is unpredictable and has shown complete disregard for the value of human life through their ongoing and violent actions,” he wrote.