Residents of The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora speak out against what they say is widespread disinformation about their apartment complex. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. PHOTO BY SUSAN GREENE, For the Sentinel 
Residents of The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora speak out against what they say is widespread disinformation about their apartment complex. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. PHOTO BY SUSAN GREENE, For the Sentinel 
Residents of The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora speak out against what they say is widespread disinformation about their apartment complex. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. PHOTO BY SUSAN GREENE, For the Sentinel 
Residents of The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora speak out against what they say is widespread disinformation about their apartment complex. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. PHOTO BY SUSAN GREENE, For the Sentinel 
Residents of The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora speak out against what they say is widespread disinformation about their apartment complex. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. PHOTO BY SUSAN GREENE, For the Sentinel
AURORA | For more than a week, the story from Fox News and conservative social media influencers is that Aurora has been overrun by Venezuelan gangsters wielding long guns, extorting rent payments from tenants in low-rent apartment complexes and terrorizing the city.
The narrative has gone so viral that a call went out this weekend for Hells Angels vigilantes to converge on Aurora and protect residents. Even Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has started citing the city in anti-immigrant campaign speeches.
Meanwhile, the mostly Venezuelan migrants who live in the apartments — targeted by what local police and Colorado’s governor have said are exaggerations and outright falsehoods — say the real danger is not from gangs, but rather a property owner they describe as a “slumlord” who has let the complex fall into disrepair. Residents say they also see danger in the city of Aurora’s seeming disinterest in holding that landlord and his management company accountable, and city politicians spreading misinformation and threatening their home.
“We’re afraid of your mayor and of the cockroaches and rats in our apartments, not of gangs,” Gladis Tovav, a resident of the six-building The Edge at Lowry complex, said through a translator.
About 50 tenants of the apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Northwest Aurora held a news conference Tuesday in response to Mayor Mike Coffman’s assertion on Facebook Friday that the city was seeking an “emergency” court order to shut down and clear out the complex and an undisclosed number of other properties. Coffman posted that the Aurora City Attorney’s office was preparing documents to request an emergency order from municipal court declaring the properties a “criminal nuisance.”
City staff on Tuesday said the city government has not in fact sought such a court order. Councilmember Alison Coombs went further, saying “that kind of emergency order doesn’t even exist,” and noting it takes months or even years for a city to shut down an apartment complex.
That was the case with a 98-unit complex at 1568 Nome St., which the city evacuated and shuttered Aug. 13 after two years of complaints by residents, many of them also Venezuelans, about building violations including leaks, mold, and bug and rodent infestations long-unaddressed by the landlord. That complex, called Aspen Grove, is owned and managed by the same interests that own and manage The Edge at Lowry. The landlord has claimed some of his buildings in Aurora have been overrun by members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang otherwise known as TdA.
A few hundred families have been displaced since the city shut Aspen Grove down.
Coffman and, to a greater extent, Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky have parroted the landlord — falsely, according to Aurora police and city staff — that the complex was shuttered because of TdA gang activity when in fact the reason was repeated building violations residents had long complained about.
On Tuesday, one tenant of The Edge in Lowry showed news reporters traps with mice, both dead and alive, stuck to them as proof of the problems. He and other residents said there has been no Venezuelan gang activity they know of in the complex, and that a much-publicized video from Aug. 18 showing of men with long guns and handguns surrounding a door of an apartment there involved outsiders not from the Venezuelan community.
They said that, contrary to Jurinsky’s claims, none of them had been extorted by gang members. Several showed receipts of their rental payments to the landlord, responding to the allegations.
ScreenshAurora police investigate allegations of rampant gangs at The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. SCREEN GRABS FROM APD VIDEOot 
ScreeAurora police investigate allegations of rampant gangs at The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. SCREEN GRABS FROM APD VIDEOnshot 
ScAurora police investigate allegations of rampant gangs at The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. SCREEN GRABS FROM APD VIDEOreenshot 
ScreAurora police investigate allegations of rampant gangs at The Edge at Lowry Apartments at East 12th Avenue and Dallas Street in Aurora. Some Aurora City Council members have gone on national and local TV saying that the complex is dangerous because its overrun by Venezuelan gangs. Residents, police and city staff say it’s untrue, and that a “slumlord” has made it nearly unlivable. SCREEN GRABS FROM APD VIDEOenshot
Aurora police are investigating that Aug. 18 incident and said in an email to the Sentinel on Friday that, despite Jurinsky’s and Coffman’s assertions that it involved TdA members, the department has no information to suggest that is true. Police declined to give further details, saying the incident is under investigation.
City staffers have urged the public and the news media — but not the politicians they work for accused of spreading misinformation in the first place — not to conflate serious building code violations at a few apartment complexes with TdA activity that may or may not be taking place in the city.
Tenants said Coffman showed up for a sweep at The Edge at Lowry on Monday with city police officers, but wouldn’t agree to sit down and speak with residents worried about getting booted out and displaced. On Facebook, the mayor posted his disappointment that “unfortunately, no one with an outstanding warrant was identified…” in the complex.
Spooked by his claims that the city is trying to shut down their buildings, the residents say it’s unfair the city would effectively punish them rather than their unresponsive landlord.
Gov. Jared Polis last week cast doubt on the extent of Venezuelan gang violence alleged in Aurora, slamming Coffman and Jurinsky for spreading false news and urging them to refrain from stoking public fears.
“He really hopes that the city council members in charge stop trashing their own city when they are supposed to keep it safe,” Polis’ spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement to the Sentinel.
In the meantime, two fellow Aurora City Council members on Tuesday criticized Coffman and Jurinsky — both Republicans who’ve taken outspoken stances against immigrants — for scaring the tenants and for triggering a flood of social media racism against Venezuelans.
“We’re dealing with irresponsible folks who for political reasons want to make a frenzy about immigration in a city that has historically been welcoming of our immigrant population,” said Coombs, a progressive Democrat and longtime advocate for Aurora’s immigrant population. The supermajority Republican to Democrat partisan split on the non-partisan, 11 member city council is a regular occurrence. “Unfortunately we have parties who are unwilling to engage in good faith and in rational discourse.”
Councilmember Crystal Murillo also expressed concerns about her colleagues seemingly willfully spreading untruths.
“We’re getting distracted by unconfirmed false narratives that play on people’s fears,” she said. “If people are spreading false information, there should be consequences. There are real impacts in the community when we use people’s identities as political pawns.”
Jurinsky did not return requests seeking her response.
Coffman, for this part, wrote, “I’m trying to do my best to place this in the context that it is isolated to three apartment complexes and that it does not, in any way, reflect on our entire city. I want to be honest in accurately describing the situation at hand, and not exaggerate it, because I fully understand the potential economic harm to our city.”
He did not address the misinformation he posted — and has not removed — about imminent court action to shut down apartments and confusion he caused by conflicting comments on Fox News and local TV news about the level of gang activity in the region.
Coombs, in the meantime, also blasted Coffman and Jurinsky for unfairly casting doubt on city staff and police in their handling of blighted apartment complexes and alleged organized crime. Given that city employees aren’t directly calling out the misinformation spread by the politicians they report to, she said she would.
“There’s one way Councilwoman Jurinsky tends to operate, and that’s hardcore grandstanding, where facts don’t matter,” she said.
As for Coffman, Coombs said, “Has a history of saying that certain actions are taking place or underway before vetting that those actions are really possible. I don’t know why he does that, but it’s not the first time.
“The mayor has definitely shown a lack of leadership,” she added. “I think he cracked under pressure in terms of promoting the narrative of his party.”
People have been saying Venezuelan gangs have been going door to door with guns and taking over apartment units. The same politicians that support open borders and sanctuary cities say it’s not happening. Then video surfaces of Venezuelan gang members going door to door with guns and taking over apartment buildings. Are you blind or just stupid to understand that they have to downplay what is going on so their policies don’t fall apart in the eyes of their constituents? But the left loves the media and its lies; they drink the kool-aid and think it’s gospel.
Can you please provide a link to some of the videos you mention?
Dale, numerous videos exist of armed men entering the apartments, of armed men pointing guns at cars in the parking lot, of a man breaking into an apartment. @vicentearenastv posted them. Also, there are published police reports documenting violence, and two arrests made of TdA gang members at the properties. As Coffman said, more are likely coming. I spent 15 minutes scrolling @dobetterdenver’s X feed and didn’t even get to the beginning date of this debacle. You can do your own research if you really want to see them.
One can quibble over the definition of a “takeover” but it is clear that TdA is in Aurora and active, enabled by the left, protected by illegals living in squalor and fear of reprisal, complicit NGOs, and a slumlord trying to claim victimhood.
Jurinsky is prone to hyperbole, but the receipts are there.
Did you read the article it says there is gang activity and crimes connected to tda but there is no takeover of any buildings which is what the mayor and the one councilwoman are lying about. And no you can’t quibble over the word takeover because that’s the operative word in the statements that they’re using in the media and it’s a lie.
Thank you, Divanista.
This is simply not true. No building was taken over. I was there today and saw this reporter. Every resident said they have never had any problems with gangs. The video is real, happened a single time ever, and they left immediately and harmed nobody, threatened nobody. It’s definitely a scary thing to see, and the residents would be right to be frightened. It seems they were looking for someone specific and had the wrong spot. But now they are frightened of the death threats they are getting because people think THEY are the gang. Even neighbors have been harassing them, literally because of media reports, not anything they witnessed.
So who do you believe, the people who live there and are desperately trying to not be evicted with a week’s notice, or politicians thousands of miles away with long histories of blaming migrants for everything?
LOL, armed men standing outside people’s doors didn’t threaten anyone? Stop. We all know you wouldn’t be downplaying this if it was white people instead of your blessed third-world migrants.
What people? Because the article interviewed actual residents who clearly stated they’re worried about the lying mayor, councilwoman and rodents not a Venezuelan gang. If they politicians have to lie like this to gain a few votes after ignoring the problems for years they don’t deserve to be in office. You’re citing a video that surfaced of people not Venezuelans with weapons which is being investigated, btw residents stated they were outsiders. So why are you insisting on the lies told by 2 people have to be true when an entire police department and the residents in the building have told you otherwise? You should be ashamed of yourself because you wanted to be immigrant so badly you’re willing to listen to two liars and overlook overwhelming evidence and multiple people telling you it’s not true. Which is what you’re accusing the left of. Drink up!
We’re afraid of your mayor [Mike Coffman] and of the cockroaches and rats in our apartments, not of gangs…” 🤣
I have canvassed this apartment complex a couple of times, looking to reach out to voters and persuade them to vote for my candidate. Admittedly, that was a few years ago, and things could have changed, but at no time did I feel there like I was endangered. Not everyone who came to their door was a citizen, but most were. It was clearly one of the most poverty-afflicted addresses I ever visited, but the residents were generally well informed already and inclined to vote the way I did.
Can you please provide a link to some of the videos you mention?
If you work in media, it should be more important to be right than to be first.
If you work in government, it should be more important to be kind than to be right.
What a wonderful world this would be if we had both, but instead we are so often misled and bitterly divided by the information we receive and the manner in which we receive it.
If Peace and Harmony are the strength and support of all societies, then I fear what is coming in their absence. There’s gotta be a better way, a way in which we can all best work and best agree, with nobody left behind in order that others may get ahead.
That’s my hope for humanity.
Well, Aurora, you just can’t get it together. It’s painful to watch the neverending drama. This article was poorly written, but two things stand out here: First, Coffman is disappointed that nobody had any warrants at this complex? What does that even mean? He WANTED to find criminals? So that it backs up his and Jurinsky’s racist, MAGA assertions about immigrants? Astonishing. I happen to think it’s a GOOD thing that criminals weren’t found, but I guess I’m coming from a whole different perspective. Second, Mayor Coffman says he realizes the “economic” harm this story is doing to Aurora. That says everything we need to know about this guy, really. He doesn’t mention the harm this story is doing to the PEOPLE who live in Aurora, the people in these complexes who weren’t scared til this story exploded, scared of retaliation, scared of being evicted, and the residents of Aurora all over the city who were told to be generally afraid, that bad guys had taken over and everyone is in danger. The human toll didn’t even occur to him. That’s a mayor who’s doing the job for the wrong reasons.
Jurinsky is copying the MAGA playbook here. She obviously believes that if she says something loud enough, and repeatedly enough, that it will become truth. It’s about manipulating vulnerable people, and enforcing a personal agenda, not about what’s best for her constituents and it’s certainly not the ethical standard we hold our elected officials to. Jurinsky enjoys the spotlight, and this time she really got it. Once again, Aurora’s in the national news for something terrible. I hope she’s got enough sense to realize how much her grandstanding cost the city and it’s residents this time, in irreparable ways. And I hope Aurora remembers this when she, and Coffman, are up for reelection.
Correct and well said. Coffman wasn’t reelected to Congress for a reason. Jurinsky is a grandstander that can make a mountain out of thin air. It’s not funny or even political humor the bad press locally and nationally has already affected property values. Thanks to the attention desperate politicians .
Thanks mayor mike for killing our property values.
Coffman and Jurinsky should both be thrown out of Aurora Government as well as Evicted from Their homes, and then donate thier homes to a homeless coalition.
Starting a Panic for some lousy votes.
Maybe Coffman and Jurinsky could both be sent down to Venesuala to meet with politians like themselves to figure out how we can stop all these Gangs ( yeah right) from coming up here and becoming the latest cannon fodder for selfish slimey piles of dodo politiians who will create crisises to worm there way to the top of the moneypile.
This MAGA movement and the rush to judgment is for the birds. I want the truth, not some lie to support someone’s prejudice! Jurinski never should have been elected. She’s always opening her huge mouth and trying to make news. This is definitely not what elected officials should be doing. I’m afraid she wants to be another Margory Taylor Greene. We need to show her the door in the next election!
The recent statements made by the police and the residents of these apartments have made this situation even more clear. We are being lied to. The mayor (Coffman) and his cronies (Jurinsky, Sundberg and Hancock) are pushing their deranged far-right conspiracy theories for their own political gain. Why else would city leaders sabotage their own city? Don’t they want Aurora to attract people around the country to live and work here? Don’t they want the people that live here to be able to sell their homes at a decent price? They’ve made Aurora look so bad to everyone that we are going feel the repercussions of this for many years to come. Businesses and homeowners will suffer, all because of them. Now it’s even more important than ever over the next few years to vote these lunatics out. As their names come up on the ballots do not vote for Coffman, Jurinsky, Sundberg, or Hancock. At this point it doesn’t really matter who they’re running against because no one could possibly do as much damage to this city as they have in the past few weeks. How sad for those of us who live in and love this city!
Remaining unanswered questions, and some critical facts lingering to this story to be able to figure out the big picture has resulted into a national political hot potato. It’s looking as Aurora by definition is definitely Sanctuary City Ground Zero. Has the dangerous Tren da Aragua gang set up shop in parts of Aurora and
Denver? Maybe because we are and have been a Sanctuary City/State? Governor Polis, says no way, its only some fairly tail Council woman
Jurinsky, has fabricated for her own agenda. Is the Governor willing to rethink his own statements as more truths keep coming out? What does that say about
his judgment of these open boarder policies he endorses and their fallout to this state and here?
We see Arapahoe county law enforcement arrested four TdA members
living in apartments called Ivy Crossing Apartments (Glendale area) in August identified today as TdA gangsters. Lots of fentanyl drugs for distribution, numerous weapons, stolen cars found with them, the Feds now ramping up and pledging support.
Of all the domino effects that are falling into this picture, who would have thunk the Hell’s Angels MC services they occasionally provide may get a call
to enforce their kind of law, a motorcycle law of the jungle. They are not exactly some group of PC/Woke driven outfit. What a story that would look like. This one although quite a stretch is highly unlikely.
The City of Aurora facing this situation of these series of apartment’s and related to its social breakdown of order with the outside PR company Red Banyan in Florida hired to keep the owner’s side of the story. The mayor is in a news TV-radio on this a couple times a week, he’s might as well have a TV reporters press room to walk into. How often has the city faced a professional PR firm in something like this, owed to the cities own negligent conduct showing us they’re some of the problem? The 17th street Denver law firm these apartment owners have hired should produce another degree of complexity the city will need to deal with. I suspect the city is out sourcing this for legal advice to handle this game changer of a defendant for years of deferred code enforcement violations and the tsunami of activity it created. The city court has now granted a resetting of these code issues until next February, Valentines day. Was city political pressure involved in the courts for this change? If so, more fallout to follow.
CNN the left leaning TV media is calling out Gov. Polis, asking is he taking the TdA reports in Aurora as a threat seriously or not? If not why not? The Governor now is being faced with unwelcome pointed questions, from his own side. So he quickly redirects it, I’m totally here if you need me.
And let’s not forget, most important our Federal CD-6 Rep. Jason Crow. We don’t see this guy coming out and close to this fiasco anyplace. I wonder why? With a voting record like his on these immigration issues I don’t blame him. But using his influence several years back trying to stall off and end the ICE Federal contracts with GEO group in Aurora, that was rich.
This whole thing has turned into the perfect storm. It will be a tug of war
between the city, the pronounced major differences coming from city council, and the apartment owners to close the next set of apartments on Dallas, and likely others in the city as places TdA wants to hang as their new found crib.
People come over the border because:
1. I and other consumers don’t want to give up their slave labor.
2. Those that employ slave labor don’t want to give up their slave labor.
I don’t care if my slave labor is from is from Venezuela or Vermont. I don’t care if they are brown, white, green or purple. I simply don’t want to clean toilets or pick up garbage and I don’t want to pay a lot to people that do.
Some of the folks that come over the border may be criminals, but most aren’t and they will be willing to clean my toilets and pick up my garbage.
Many of the companies that employ these people (slaves) will continue to do so, since they have both the money and power to continue.
I am assuming that those that complain about this situation have neither money or power and are being fed a line of BS from those on the left, right and middle of the political spectrum in an effort to harvest votes.
Any idea that this will change in any meaningful way is a fantasy.
As a final note, if you are afraid of criminals, I suggest that you kill as many that you possibly can if they threaten you or your property. If they are a threat to anyone in the ghetto that is some of the parts of the city of Aurora, then that is their problem and not mine and any idea that anyone else is concerned is, of course, ridiculous.
Bob, you like other right wing individuals create scenarios that don’t exist. Then you make them political and get all the other ill informed individuals that subscribe to the right leading media outlets in an uproar. This is getting tiresome.
What’s tiresome, Tom, is your side pretending that immigrant gangs don’t exist, subverting the process of preventing them from establishing operations, and then shrugging your shoulders and saying ‘welp, nothing we can do about it, just have to live with it,” or actively working against anything that might actually solve the problem when it gets too big to sweep under the rug anymore.
Ignoring everything you say should be SOP for any functional, stable society, because leftists are inherently bad-faith actors who hate such things.
It seems like the only person never listed by name in any of these articles is the landlord who seems ultimately responsible for this mess. Why is their identity being protected?
Right???? Management apparently changes often, but the CEO is a guy called Zev Baumgarten in New York. Huh, that’s so weird. That name doesn’t sound very Venezuelan at all…
The police are saying the gangs are not an issue. Why aren’t they backing the “boys in blue” now?
Is it any surprise that the Lefty Sentinel would parrot the garbage of the open border Democraps that run this state and the cesspool city of Denver? Why these precious “newcomers” are just fine upstanding future citizens who spend most of their time helping old ladies across streets. Right, the videos, the AMERICAN family who had multiple locks on their doors in fear for their safety, the Venezuelan thug boss repeatedly arrested for crimes, the arrest of four TdA members by Arapahoe County, that’s all just “right wing” conspiracy theories. The Sentinel is a good example of why this cesspool state is a lost cause, and I say this a native of this once great state.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door”
If you think it’s so bad, then leave. Isn’t that what you guys used to say all the time? I’ll take the arepas they were saving for you, they’d be wasted on someone like you anyhow.
Thank you for publishing this article. Aurora is a good place to live. I know, I live here. From my perspective all this conflagration and exaggeration has been put out by Coffman and crew to distract everyone from the fact that City of Aurora has failed to enforce State, County and City Code of Habitation and Public Safety for these people in these apartments. For Years. Tenant rights have been a bit hit and miss, but this – this is deplorable. The ‘gang” story is just a way to deflect the City’s responsibility to uphold the law to-even bare minimum habitability. You know, running water, leak free plumbing, mold free, solid construction, heat and A/C/
Now does Colorado have gangs? Sure. For as long as I can remember. So do most places in the United States. That is an issue for the Police and occasionally the FBI when it gets out of hand.
Do we allow gangs to overrun places? No. See previous paragraph.
Since I live here, I am pretty sure any gangs around here had very little to do with the conditions at that apartment – it’s a situation that the absentee landlord has had for many years – at least a good 5 or more years or more- gang stuff news would have gotten around here pretty fast. Nothing until recently, just a plethora of complaints to get the building fixed with repairs that the tenants cannot – by terms of their leases- fix themselves. THAT I heard about.
It’s that so called landlord that should be evicted. He’s the one responsible for maintenance. So auction the property to a developer to make repairs and improvements, and then subsidize the rents by income basis, so those people can move back into their homes. That Would Work. Most of those folks are Salt-of the-Earth Hardworking people. They deserve better.
Since Coffman wants to give this property back to his pet slumlord, it would not surprise me if they do develop it for super high rent with super high profit to anyone but the original tenants, the victims of this travesty, and a true loss for Aurora.
Incoming APD Chief (maybe) Chamberlain sounds like a rational and well spoken individual. Will anybody be surprised if between now and his reporting date he says thanks, but no thanks. Or if he does report for duty he assesses what is going on with all of the confusing/conflicting information and nasty accusations flying back and forth and decides being APD Chief is not good for his health and announces an early departure. Apply your critical thinking skill and ask yourself if whatever knowledge, skills and abilities he might bring with him as the new Chief will have any positive impact.