DENVER — The city of Aurora, Colorado, has ordered that the apartment complex where armed people thought to be members of a Venezuelan gang were seen breaking into an occupied unit be closed. This comes after Donald Trump promised during his campaign to target refugees.
The city was given an emergency court order to shut down the five-building complex called The Edge at Lowry because it has become an illegal nuisance, a city spokesman said Wednesday. The complex will close sometime next month.
Two people were kidnapped, bound, and pistol-whipped at the building last month by armed people who were thought to be members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TDA). The city filed the petition last week.
The city did not say what caused the argument.
“We had to take that property back because it wasn’t being managed at all,” City Attorney Pete Schulte said this week at a news conference. “No one is going to stop people from committing crimes at that premise.”
He said that the building and its thieves were a direct danger to the public’s health and safety.
The Aurora Police Department said in a statement that nine of the 16 people involved in the alleged kidnapping are facing different charges, such as first-degree assault, aggravated robbery, and blackmail.
It wasn’t clear if any of the 16 were in a gang. Police said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had taken them all into custody.
About 60 units in the complex are rented out, but some are empty and are being illegally used by gang members and squatters, according to city officials. They are working with Arapahoe County and other community partners to help legal residents move.
City officials said that during an investigation, police found guns hidden in the walls of some buildings. Police checked five apartments on December 17 and found at least three handguns, several knives, and magazines that were too long.
The building is owned by Five Dallas Partners LLC, and CBZ Management LLC runs it. Neither answered the phone or email when asked for a response.
In August, a video going viral showed armed people who were thought to be members of a gang breaking into an occupied flat. This got a lot of attention across the country.
Trump attacked Aurora while he was campaigning, saying that Venezuelan gangs had taken over the city. During a presidential debate, he said over and over that the TDA had taken over the homes.
After a few weeks, Trump said at a campaign gathering in Aurora that he was going to target undocumented gang members for the mass deportations that he said would start as soon as he became president. His plan was known as “Operation Aurora.”
At the time, city officials said the gang had a small presence in the city but claimed it had not taken over the complex. Some locals agreed that the claims were not true, while others said they thought it was happening.
The federal government says that as of July 2024, there were 435,719 convicted criminal aliens in the U.S. who were not in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It didn’t say how many of them might have been in a gang.
The Edge at Lowry was condemned by the city because of an alleged kidnapping last month. The building had many “illegal tenants” who moved into empty apartments without asking for a lease or application.
Mayor Mike Coffman wouldn’t say anything.
Chief of Police Todd Chamberlain said at the news conference that the shooting would be shut down, “The city of Aurora has seen a major problem that’s been infecting our community.” He said the place was “full of crime.”
Aurora’s head of Housing and Community Services, Jessica Prosser, said the house is not habitable because there are orders to remove trash and $70,000 in unpaid gas, water, and utility bills.
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