Cue the orchestra. This month’s E-Tom Award goes to…criminal gangs from Venezuela, for allegedly taking over entire apartment buildings in Aurora.
If you missed it, this has been a very big story, especially on social media, for a few weeks now. The hysteria has died down to more like, well, a twitter.
The word was that Venezuelan criminals were invading multifamily buildings. They would demand “rent” from the terrified tenants. Many renters reportedly moved out as the gangsters moved in.
How many buildings were affected? To me the number appears to be three, and to a lesser extent, maybe a couple more. At least two are owned by a slumlord called CBZ Management.
Social media videos have shown heavily armed thugs breaking down doors and forcing their way into apartments. Unverifiable, however, are exactly where this happened and when. The scenes could have been shot anywhere.
(“E-Tom,” by the way, is a tortured sort of acronym that stands for Existential Threat of the Month. My new award will honor exceptional actors in service to making people scared out of their wits about safety, survival, and life as we know it. 🙂
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Aurora’s events are closely connected to debates about homeland security. Critics say the Venezuelan invasion was an inevitable consequence of the nation’s open borders.
“Did you seen what’s happening in Colorado?” said Donald Trump at a campaign rally. “You haven’t seen even the beginning of this migrant crime.”
In a later chapter, legions of motorcycle vigilantes were seen cruising toward Colorado. Seriously, they said the Hell’s Angels were on the way.
Again, the video images were hard to verify. I pictured an armada of middle-aged white guys looking like John Goodman (“Walter”) in The Big Lebowski. Angry veterans, perhaps, they’d be eager to dish out their brand of justice to the South of the Border boys.
As you might gather, I am skeptical about the extent of alleged Venezuelan crime in Colorado. But then I have no real capacity to go out and check facts as a journalist might.
And I mean not to minimize the impact of violence and intimidation on the tenants of these relatively low rent properties.
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The 98-unit Aspen Grove Apartments stands at 1580 Nome Street. It was shut down in August by the City of Aurora. The invaders were not gangs but mice, rats, roaches and bedbugs. Not to mention mold, trash, broken windows and dysfunctional plumbing.
Water was shut off after CBZ Management stopped paying the bill. All residents of the complex were evicted including, it was said, even some homeless loiterers outside the complex.
CBZ blamed its troubles on Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan prison gang. Gangsters were squatting inside, making it impossible for work crews to approach the building and do maintenance, said the owner.
An Aurora official called that excuse an “alternative narrative.” The building’s code violations long preceded any criminal intrusion.
Five minutes to the west is another CBZ Management property called the Edge at Lowry. It was the site of a “wild shootout” in mid-August, according to the Fox31 news outlet in Denver. Arrests were made, including some Venezuelans.
But in a thoroughly publicized video, Aurora police scoured the complex, knocking on doors, talking to tenants and looking for evidence of gang activity.
Acting Aurora police chief Heather Morris said the Edge was livable and free of the suspected strife. Interviewees on camera seemed to agree—although perhaps fearful of losing their homes to eviction.
“I’m not saying that there’s not gang members that live in this community, but what we’re learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex,” she said.
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Governor Jared Polis has downplayed the effects of Venezuelan crime in Colorado.
A harsher view came from Denver law firm Perkins Cole, in a confidential letter to city officials. The firm was hired by a mortgage lender to investigate crime at the 45-unit Whispering Pines complex at 1357 Helena Street.
The letter said Tren de Aragua began seizing individual apartments there in 2023. The gang has exerted a “stranglehold” on the complex with assaults, human trafficking, sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms, and extortion.
Recent events may have triggered a stigma affecting all local Venezuelans.
But a better view of those immigrants is evident every morning at about any Home Depot. Young men are standing around in clusters, eager to be hired for construction work. They’re from Venezuela, Mexico, and elsewhere.
I have employed two very talented Venezuelan dudes for drywall and tile work, floor refinishing, painting, plumbing, and landscaping. Best guys I’ve ever hired.
Meanwhile the Aspen Grove Apartments stand vacant, boarded up and surrounded by trash, in north Aurora.
A fitting fate for the gangsters might be to force them inside and make them live there.
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