Aurora Colorado Residents Say Venezuelan Gangs Aren’t The Problem In Their Apartment Complexes — And They're Calling Out The Real Villain
The story has been seized on by right-wing media. But even the police say it's nonsense.
Krakenimages.com | Shutterstock For weeks, media outlets and social media platforms have been blanketed with horror stories about apartment complexes in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, being under siege by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Amid a presidential election in which immigration and the security of the U.S.'s southern border with Mexico are key issues, the stories have quickly become hot-button talking points, especially in right-wing media.
But the facts of the matter paint a far more complicated picture, one that has at least in part been ginned up by the person some of the actual residents of the apartment complexes say is the real villain: their landlord.
Aurora, Colorado residents say the Venezuelan gang stories are a cover for a slumlord's refusal to clean up the apartment complexes.
Over the Labor Day holiday, residents of the apartment complexes supposedly being taken over by the Venezuelan gang held a press conference to give their perspective on what is happening there. The stories they presented are starkly different from those being bandied about in the media, especially on the right.
To be clear, both Denver and Aurora police say that Tren de Aragua does have a presence in both cities, and the Department of Homeland Security has issued warning memos about the problem. DHS has also confirmed that the armed men who appeared in viral doorbell camera footage attacking the apartment of resident Cindy Romero were, in fact, members of the gang.
Still, local police say the gang's presence around Denver is nonetheless small, and incidents related to them are isolated. So why the constant horror stories about Venezuelan gangs pouring over the border and terrorizing Aurora?
Some residents say they are simply a diversion cooked up by slumlords to conceal the disrepair in the Aurora apartment complexes in question — complexes which are home to many immigrants, including those from Venezuela.
Videos and photos from the press conference shared by local politician and community organizer Auon'tai M. Anderson show filthy apartments with broken-out windows full of damaged furniture and appliances, as well as residents holding up glue traps covered in live mice.
"These are the living conditions they are forced to endure while paying between $1,700 and $2,000 per month," Anderson wrote.
Slumlord Zev Baumgarten, who faces charges over the condition of his buildings, hired a PR firm to blame disrepair on Venezuelan gangs.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman has repeatedly claimed Tren de Aragua members have been violently forcing residents to pay them their rent money. But residents say the claim is nonsense, and Mayor Coffman subsequently recanted it after residents told him the real reason their rent payments have been disappearing: They've simply stopped paying in order to compel their landlord, Zev Baumgarten and his company CBZ Management, to actually do something about the appalling conditions of its apartment complexes.
It seems that conflict just might be what is actually at the heart of the wildly embellished Aurora Venezuelan gang story. Baumgarten was slated to face a jury trial in August over 81 charges pertaining to conditions in his Aurora-area apartment complexes, including rat infestations and sewage backups.
With just weeks to go before the trial, a Florida-based PR firm Baumgarten hired released a statement to media blaming the conditions in CBZ's complexes on members of Tren de Aragua taking them over and scaring away the property managers tasked with caring for them.
This was, in turn, used as justification for mass evictions at some CBZ complexes, and an Aurora Municipal Court judge subsequently granted a motion to vacate Baumgarten's trial and move his court dates to February 2025. He and his lawyers will now face Aurora prosecutors instead of a jury.
Even the Aurora Police Department says the Venezuelan gang story is false, and it appears to be politically motivated.
It's not just residents who say the uproar is wildly exaggerated. The Aurora Police Department, which has been under a consent decree since 2023 due to a longstanding pattern of racially biased policing, agrees. Interim Chief of Police Heather Morris flatly told local media on Labor Day that "gang members have NOT taken over" the Aurora complexes at the center of the story.
But residents have said that the opposite is happening. One resident, who himself hails from Venezuela, said the viral stories have actually resulted in American gangs breaking in and disrupting the complex, supposedly to avenge the Venezuelan gang activity.
Residents also say the disinformation has given rise to xenophobic threats of violence and explicitly political harassment about immigration issues from those aligned with far-right political movements.
At the press conference, residents shared a horrifying message sent to a renter who shared their phone number in an apartment complex forum to offer their fellow neighbors assistance.
The message, said to have come from a local right-wing militia group, referred to the complex's many Latinx residents as "animals" and included threats stating that "the Colorado veterans are building a militia with more firepower than you guys could ever imagine… now everyone who hates illegals knows where you live… Be ready for the Americans."
@AuontaiAnderson / X
Armed militia groups have been exploding in the U.S. for more than a decade, and their activities have intensified since the January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol. Many are explicitly aligned with former President Donald Trump, and immigration and border security, along with racism and xenophobia, are key issues that animate many of them.
It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the Aurora Venezuelan gang story has been seized on by right-wing media and politicians eager to fear-monger about border security and criticize Democratic politicians' approach to immigration.
Local Aurora Republicans, including Mayor Coffman and city councilwoman Danielle Jurinksy, have also repeatedly spread embellished, and in some cases outright baseless, horror stories about the situation in Aurora. Donald Trump has stoked them, too.
With media literacy at an all-time low and America's political climate never more toxic, it's also not at all surprising that Baumgarten's gambit to evade trial by stoking a propaganda maelstrom that paints him as a hapless victim actually worked.
All propaganda needs to succeed is enough people willing to fall for and amplify a message simply because it aligns with their biases.
Meanwhile, it is the already struggling and vulnerable residents of the Aurora apartment complexes at the center of this viral lie who are suffering the dire consequences, all while being used as pawns for political gain.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.