Defying Gang Takeover Claims, Aurora Tenants Protest ‘Slum’ Landlord • Colorado Newsline
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Defying Gang Takeover Claims, Aurora Tenants Protest ‘Slum’ Landlord • Colorado Newsline

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Residents of an Aurora apartment complex on Tuesday denied viral reports of a gun-toting gang takeover that thrust their building into the national spotlight last week, seeking to put the spotlight on the owner, a “slumdog” who has allowed his buildings and dozens across the city to fall into disrepair.

“I have bedbugs in my apartment, I have cockroaches, I have rats. My kids are all bitten,” Juan Carlos Alvarado Jimenez, a Venezuelan immigrant who lives at The Edge at Lowry apartments in northwest Aurora, said through an interpreter. “I don’t see any criminals here. I think we all know who the real criminals are.”

Joined by tenant advocates and community organizers, Jimenez and other residents of rental properties owned by New York-based CBZ Management showed off rent receipts, photos of piles of trash and dead mice trapped in traps in their apartments. Nearly a dozen tenants spoke and answered reporters’ questions. While some referred to what appeared to be an attempted break-in or other crime captured on a widely circulated video, they rejected widespread claims that a Venezuelan gang has taken control of their buildings or is extorting rent from residents.

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“The good that exists here is better than the bad,” said Francy Rodriguez, another tenant who spoke through an interpreter. “We’re not all just Venezuelans, we’re not all just Colombians — we’re all together. We’re good people.”

Local controversy over living conditions and reports of criminal activity at several Aurora apartment buildings had been brewing for weeks. But the surge in national attention came after a 15-second video clip circulated last week showing a group of armed men knocking on an apartment door and entering.

In recent days, Aurora’s Republican mayor, interim police chief and conservative city council member have offered varying characterizations of the nature and scope of the alleged gang activity. Far-right political commentators have sensationalized the situation, blaming Democrats for “immigrant gangs taking over Aurora” and falsely claiming that violent crime in the city — the third-largest in Colorado, with a population of about 400,000 — has “skyrocketed.”

On Aug. 13, hundreds of residents, many of them Venezuelan immigrants, were evicted from Fitzsimons Place, a 98-unit complex owned by CBZ Management, after the city of Aurora condemned the property, deeming it uninhabitable after years of code violations. City officials said they would seek a court order declaring the company’s remaining properties a “criminal nuisance,” allowing the city to close them and evict the residents.

CBZ Management, which owns rental properties in Colorado and New York, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Tenants of the company’s buildings said they have received racist messages and threats of violence from unknown individuals following national media attention last week and have been alarmed by social media rumors, such as one that the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is heading to Aurora. They fear they will have nowhere to go if the city continues with plans to clear the buildings.

“Nobody charges us to live here, nobody threatens us,” Sarimar Marin, who lives in Whispering Pines, another CBZ property in Aurora, told Newsline. “Only working families and good people live here.”

Years of problems

The details of what happened in recent months at several CBZ Management properties in Aurora remain in dispute, but there’s no doubt they followed years of documented complaints about poor living conditions at several of the company’s buildings — long before large numbers of migrants began arriving in the Denver metro area in early 2023.

The first claims of gangs “taking over” Aurora apartment complexes emerged among far-right Colorado politicians in late July. CBZ Management officials repeated those claims in the days leading up to the city’s condemnation of Fitzsimons Place. At the time, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican former member of Congress, called the company “out-of-state slum dwellers” who tried to shift blame for the problems they caused.

“The problems in this building certainly precede any problems with Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said Aug. 9. “The problems even precede the migration crisis.”

Defying Gang Takeover Claims, Aurora Tenants Protest ‘Slum’ Landlord • Colorado Newsline
Buildings at The Edge at Lowry, an apartment complex in Aurora that has been in the spotlight for surveillance footage that right-wing political figures say shows an armed gang taking over the property, are pictured in a Sept. 3, 2024, file photo. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

The building, formerly known as Bahamas Apartments, made headlines in 2021, with residents reporting issues ranging from pests and piles of trash to broken appliances, damaged railings and a collapsed ceiling caused by a falling toilet. In early 2023, the building was back in the news, with tenants telling Denver7 they were dealing with mold, leaks, flooding and no heat for months during the winter.

Javier Hidalgo, a former tenant at Fitzsimons Place, sued CBZ Management and its agents, Shmaryahu and Zev Baumgarten, in Adams County District Court, alleging “fundamentally uninhabitable” conditions for years and seeking back rent and other damages. A separate set of proceedings against Zev Baumgarten in Aurora Municipal Court, involving dozens of alleged code violations, has been postponed until next year, Westword reported.

In an Aug. 13 statement regarding the Fitzsimons Place expropriation, a city of Aurora spokesperson said the blame “falls squarely on CBZ Management and its principals, landlords and property managers who have repeatedly failed their tenants over the years by allowing the building and property to fall into a state of total disrepair.”

The area of ​​northwest Aurora where several CBZ properties are located, on the edge of the city’s Denver border, has long struggled with elevated crime rates. In recent weeks, there have been a number of crimes reported near The Edge at Lowry, including a fatal shooting on the night of Aug. 18. Another shooting occurred outside Fitzsimons Place on July 28 and led to the arrest of a documented gang member, Aurora police said.

But claims that overall crime rates have “skyrocketed” following the arrival of large numbers of migrants from Venezuela and other Central and South American countries are false. Crime rates in the Denver metropolitan area and Colorado as a whole have been steadily declining since late 2022. A significant number of migrants began arriving in January 2023, and the number of new arrivals peaked between October 2023 and January of this year before declining sharply, according to Denver city officials.

Different characteristics

The video of armed men entering an apartment at The Edge at Lowry was recorded on Aug. 18 by Cindy Romero, who lived in the apartment complex with her husband until last month.

It is unclear whether the video is related to the fatal shooting reported the same day. Aurora Police Department officials declined to comment directly on the video, saying in an Aug. 28 statement that “it would be inappropriate for the City and APD to make any definitive statements about specific incidents or provide details regarding law enforcement strategies and actions at this time.”

Denver-area law enforcement has acknowledged for weeks that members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization, have a presence in Colorado, linking them to crimes such as the June 24 robbery of a jewelry store in north Denver. A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the New York Post on July 30 reported that Tren de Aragua members in Colorado had been given a “green light” to shoot or attack law enforcement officers.

Aurora police maintain that the gang’s activities are “isolated” and small compared to other criminal organizations operating in the metropolitan area. But speculation about Tren de Aragua’s influence has been fueled by a handful of local conservative political figures, including Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky and John Fabbricatore, a Republican former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who is campaigning for the congressional seat held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow of Aurora.

Jurinsky claims that “areas of our city are being taken over” and baselessly linked a July 28 gathering in a shopping mall parking lot, where a crowd of thousands gathered to await the results of Venezuela’s election, to Tren de Aragua. Fabbricatore attributed some of his claims about the gang to “anonymous reports from local officials.”

Jurinksy and Fabbricatore say they helped Cindy Romero and her husband move out of The Edge at Lowry last week over safety concerns. In at least one instance, Fabbricatore was identified as a spokesman for CBZ Management by a Florida-based PR firm the company hired.

Disputing claims that the apartment was taken over by a gang and instead blaming an absentee landlord, tenants of several Aurora apartments showed rent receipts, photos of piles of trash and dead mice they had caught in their apartments. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

APD officials continue to deny reports that Tren de Aragua has taken over entire apartment complexes.

“I’m not saying there aren’t gang members who … live in this community,” APD Interim Chief Heather Morris said in a video released Aug. 30 by the department after a meeting with residents of The Edge at Lowry. “But what we’re learning here is that gang members have not taken over this complex.”

Coffman’s message and tone on the situation have been fluid in recent days, sometimes shifting between interviews. Last week, he dismissed the “hysteria” that he said was making it harder to help people who may have been gang victims, but he also spoke of a “hostile force” at work in the community as a result of the Biden administration’s “failed policies.”

After denying claims that a gang had taken over the Fitzsimons Place complex, Coffman told 9News on Aug. 29 that he now worries there are “two or three properties” in the city where gangs have “pushed out the property manager and are extorting money from the tenants.” He did not name specific properties and said police are “constantly operating” to investigate and resolve the situation.

Coffman visited The Edge at Lowry on Monday, joined by APD officers. In a social media post, he set a new tone for the business he recently called an “out-of-state slum.”

“Of course, the goal is to get these properties into owner control as quickly as possible. We will be meeting with owner representatives this week to discuss how to do that,” Coffman wrote.

But residents and community advocates said Tuesday that it is the vulnerable tenants who will be punished for the problems caused by the absentee landlord’s neglect. Several tenants said Coffman refused to listen to their concerns during a visit Monday.

“The city is choosing to meet with the landlord instead of listening directly to the tenants who have years and years of evidence against the landlord and deserve to meet with them to talk about the conditions and the reality of the situation,” said V Reeves, an organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver, a homeless advocacy group. “These families deserve to have the resources and the time to move to safety.”

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