After months of horror and controversy, the infamous Edge at Lowry apartment complex has been shuttered.
The critical problems that led to the disaster are now ripe, and long overdue, for a solution.
Aurora was unfairly dragged into the national spotlight last summer by local and national political schemers hoping to cash in on growing anti-immigrant sentiment for what never was an immigration problem.
The quandary of three appalling apartment buildings that became centers of squalor and crime were the result of apartment owner malfeasance and local government negligence.
The landlord for all three northwest Aurora properties is the same. New York CBZ management has purchased and held The Edge, Aspen Grove and Whispering Pines apartments for the last few years.
All three apartments became critical public health and safety nuisances after they purchased the complexes and mismanaged them into disasters, according to documented city records.
Mayor Mike Coffman and others have accurately called the buildings “slums” and the owners “slumlords.”
This all exploded into national controversy when Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky falsely blamed Venezuelan immigrants living in these slums for drawing what she tried to paint as an army of Venezuelan gangsters running amok in northwest Aurora.
It was a political lie, told repeatedly on local far-right radio stations and far-right Fox News shows. Beginning in August, it fed into the false narrative of Donald Trump and Colorado right-wing extremists seeking to gain political momentum among voters by demonizing primarily Venezuelan refugees and making Aurora voters, and all Americans, fearful of immigrants.
No one ever doubted legitimate police claims that there were shocking crimes occurring in these apartments, or that some of the crimes were committed by immigrants.
Aurora, Denver and much of the metro area has been a place where horrific crimes have long been committed in poor and wealthy communities alike. Aurora police answered more than 250,000 calls for service last year.
In 2011, the city recorded 12 murders, 186 sex assaults and 754 aggravated assaults among 1,467 major crimes. In 2020, there were 39 murders, 324 sex assaults and 2,264 aggravated assaults, long before Venezuelan immigrants began arriving in the metro area.
Last year, major crime statistics looked much the same. Venezuelan gangs were not the force driving more than 2,100 aggravated assaults, of which, more than 300 were linked to a number of gangs.
Police and city officials have been relentless in insisting that none of these complexes, nor any Aurora community, has ever been “overrun” by immigrant gangs or any other gangs.
What clearly happened is that unscrupulous landlords allowed these buildings to deteriorate for the last few years, drawing vermin and opportunistic criminals that preyed on desperate people.
City records show that as long ago as 2023, some of these three buildings were already in critically dangerous condition. They were so dangerous that city lawmakers at the time proposed legislation boosting the city‘s power and ability to force either critical living condition improvements at the buildings or imposing meaningful fines and ways to force changes.
The bill was disregarded by a majority of city lawmakers who saw the measures as too unfriendly to commercial property owners.
The Aurora City Council must change course now siding with and protecting commercial rental owners, and so many other businesses, over the safety, health and well-being of the public and city residents.
It is not unreasonable to expect that city and county health, building and fire officials regularly inspect public places, such as restaurants, stores, apartments and hospitals, to ensure compliance with reasonable regulations and ensure compliance.
That didn’t happen at these three apartment buildings.
Because of that, innocent and vulnerable renters were subjected to a vast list of health and safety atrocities.
Because of this calamity, every business in Aurora has been tainted and hurt by the false narrative of Aurora being a slum-ridden town overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
Nothing could be worse for all and every Aurora business and the nearly 400,000 people who live here and never deserved any of this.
It doesn’t mean that there problems weren’t inflicted on immigrants and other residents at these notorious apartment complexes because non-profit agencies placing residents did not or could not vet CBZ and the rental units, or follow-up on their welfare. But only commercial apartment owners can and must be responsible for the safety and health of all renters.
Rather than fight against common-sense, responsible regulation of commercial apartments, Aurora lawmakers must ensure the city has the authority, staffing and legal resources to ensure this kind of debacle never happens again.
Aurora lawmakers should begin by revisiting the 2023 legislation, now being able to test the bill against the city’s unfortunate past and current reality.
You are so right, we need to fight back against these slumlords. Thank you for supporting the real interests of Aurorans.
LOL, yeah, it’s not like you’d fight back against migrant gang members. They’re on your team and you support their criminal activity, after all.
Well said.
There are 2 separate independent issues here. To suggest that one caused the other is disingenuous to say the least. Those getting their information from reputable sources like the Denver Post and local TV know what happened here. The City of Denver, wanting to preserve their image as a “welcoming city,” conspired to place their overflow of illegals in Aurora without telling Aurora. They placed them in the apartment complexes mentioned because they were available and cheap. Included were a substantial number of illegal immigrant gang members who ran off the managers with threats of physical harm and took over the complex. They intimidated fellow immigrants, started collecting rents themselves, forced their way into apartments and even kidnapped and tortured a couple.
The Aurora Sentinel has been trying to cover this up from the beginning. They immediately ran a story about how this was made up by Representative Jurinsky. Then the surveillance video from a resident named Cindy Romero was made public and they had to alter their story to “well, they haven’t taken over Aurora.” If it weren’t for that video, they would still be denying there was a problem. Now it’s “the slumlords caused the problem.” No! Denver and the Biden/Harris administration caused the problem. If those criminals weren’t placed in that complex, they would have been placed somewhere else. It’s always the same with the Sentinel – if a story makes Republicans look bad, they exaggerate, highlight, exaggerate. If a story makes Democrats look bad, they cover up, deny and cover up.
This slanted piece is interesting in fact needed but sadly produces its customary incongruent commentary. Let’s take a look at some strong reasons for all the confusion. To have faith in Aurora’s dysfunction to be assured what went wrong and their ability for provide solid information is sketchy. The city from the start has sent so many mixed messages and pointed the finger in every direction.
This city pattern and its inability to face the growing controversy started Sunday afternoon July 28, 2024. The Venezuela immigrant’s approximately 4000, their election-politically fueled crowd forcing a evening takeover of the Gardens shopping center. It included cop cars with a bullet hole or two. This overwhelmed the city, they never followed up and shared much rather disputed CM Jurinsky. Then CM Danielle Jurinsky, dove into this full steam. She pulled the curtain back, wide open exposing bureaucratic misfeasance.
Regrettably, this structure in the city could not except the breakdown that some safe city façade was now being questioned. It met with the unpleasant realities. She was putting pressure on and exposed more incompetence and poor accountability for city officials to explain. She managed pretty well to single handedly put this in front of the nation. It took off like the Santa-ana wildfires. She was relentless and made this tricky political problem as transparent as possible, what else could she have done. But Dave Perry, would disagree and twist her contribution as some bad- faith attempt, to a solution.
We know to some extent Denver and a couple Venezuelan friendly non-profits were pouring people into Aurora at wholesale numbers. By the hundreds into Aurora, TdA gangsters cheerfully placed as well. The subsequent fallout was too difficult to manage, the city had no idea what to do.
So here we are- Feb-25- 2025. Note, Denver 7, on Sept 3, 2024 had an interview with Mayor Coffman.
“There’s been mixed messaging over the last few days regarding claims that a Venezuelan gang has taken over an Aurora apartment complex. Denver7 took those claims directly to Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman during a one-on-one interview.”
“The mayor plans to launch an investigation into what brought immigrants to Aurora.” “We haven’t confirmed this, but I believe that an investigation will show that you had nonprofit organizations who, unbeknownst to us and didn’t go through us, but were a recipient of state and or federal funds to provide assistance to migrants who were predominantly Venezuelan, and to place them in apartments. We didn’t know where they placed them, but I believe that they placed them in these apartments in such concentrations that have created a problem,” said Coffman”
That was in September. What has the city produced? Hello, Sentinel…. Hello… You grip about wanting things fixed. How comprehensive is this city investigation? Six months later and nothing to show. Will CM Jurinsky’s time now be needed to do her own investigation to tackle this one as well? She’s not the only council person up there. Does she have to do it all?