Colorado city seeking order to evict Venezuelan gang members that overtook apartment buildings: ‘Criminal nuisance’
The city of Aurora, Colorado announced it would clear out an apartment building overrun by violent Venezuelan gang members after a video of the gun-toting crew went viral.
The city ruled that the gang activities are a “criminal nuisance” — giving officials license to draft up emergency court-ordered evictions, Mayor Mike Coffman announced Friday.
“This will require a municipal judge to issue the order with the goal of getting these properties back under the control of the property owners,” said Coffman, who previously called the takeover “an organized criminal effort.”
“In the meantime, the law enforcement task force set up to disrupt and arrest Venezuelan gang members in these buildings will continue its operations.”
Coffman referenced the viral surveillance footage that captured a group of heavily armed men — including three with handguns and one with a rifle — entering a troubled apartment complex and breaking into a unit.
Another clip taken at a different time shows two men bashing the lock of a unit with a tire iron inside the same housing complex.
The crew, possibly the violent prison gang Tren de Aragua, has taken over several apartments in the Denver suburb, with investors saying they’ve “lost control” of their properties.
Coffman said the gang is specifically targeting properties that are all under the same out-of-state ownership.
“I strongly believe that the best course of action is to shut these buildings down and make sure that this never happens again,” the mayor said.
Multiple high-profile crimes including the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the Big Apple shooting of two NYPD officers in June have been linked to members of Tren de Aragua.
On Thursday, the city leader slammed the federal government for allowing migrants to flood into the country. Many of them have traveled to the sanctuary city of Denver, which is about 10 miles west of Aurora.
Coffman has also previously speculated that the federal government may have worked with non-profits to place migrants in the affected buildings — which could have then attracted the gang to exploit the migrants.
Earlier this week, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office dismissed that the buildings had been seized by gang members, telling The Post that police intelligence regarding this “purported invasion” is largely made up.
