Nineteen individuals were detained following a brutal home invasion at the same Aurora, Colorado apartment building that made national headlines over past criminal migrant activity.
A man and a woman were accosted and taken to an empty apartment against their will Monday night by a group of about 13 to 15 armed individuals, according to a press briefing from Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain. While the two victims were restrained, pistol whipped and stabbed, some of the alleged assailants went to the victims’ home at a different apartment building to steal some of their belongings.
The victims were eventually released after promising their captors that they would not call authorities, according to Chamberlain. Afterward, the man and woman drove away and called police.
“We have proactively been focused on that apartment complex,” the police chief said, acknowledging the history of Venezuelan-related criminal activity plaguing the area in recent times. “As everybody here knows, and as the nation knows, this complex is an incredibly problematic complex. It is an incredibly crime-riddled complex that we have been focused on.”
“Unfortunately, when you look at this type of activity, especially when you consider all of the individuals involved in this are most likely Venezuelan, most of them are without question, or most likely, we believe at this point, undocumented or immigrants to the city of Aurora,” Chamberlain continued. “Again, unfortunately, these individuals, like many gangs, and many individuals involved in this type of activity, they victimized their own race and their ethnicity.”
The Aurora Police Department has not released all of the identities of the suspects, but Chamberlain said his department has reached out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help confirm the background of all involved.
The incident took place at the Edge at Lowry apartment complex in Aurora, the very same complex where viral doorbell footage in August captured armed men storming the area the same day a man was shot and killed, setting off national media coverage over migrant criminal activity in the Colorado city. While Aurora leaders initially denied that Tren de Aragua — a vicious international gang that originated in Venezuela — was responsible for the apartment’s woes, subsequent investigations confirmed the gang’s presence at the apartments.
Aurora, like many communities across the United States, has felt the consequences of the unprecedented border crisis experienced under the Biden-Harris administration. Denver, a major sanctuary city just a few miles away, opened the door to tens of thousands of migrants during the ongoing crisis before it was forced to pull back its services — but not before sending a number of those migrants to Aurora, to the apparent chagrin of the mayor.
The city is attempting to crack down on the migrant gang threat, with proposals to boost its police funding by millions of dollars.
Chamberlain said that the incident Monday night was “without question” gang related and said there was a “high assumption” that Tren de Aragua was involved, but he was not yet able to make a confirmation.
“This is without question a gang incident,” he said. “I don’t know which gang they are affiliated with yet. It might be TdA [Tren de Aragua]. It could not be TdA.”
“We will determine that, and we will find that out,” the police chief continued. “But right now, as I said before, it is incredibly hard to identify specifically as TdA because there is no specific markers, there is no specific identifiers, unless they self-identify as TdA.”
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