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10 22 24 Aurora Sentinel Editor Dave Perry on the rumors of Venezuelan gang activity
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Don't live an on-demand entertainment with no logins, no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle. This November, get cozy and stay in from movie night with Air Force One starring Harrison Ford and Glenn Close, and The Art of War starring Wesley Snipes, all streaming free on Zummo Play. Go to play.zummo.com now. Life is hard. Zummo is easy. What is and is not happening in Aurora regarding Venezuelan gangs, an Aurora City Council member and former President Trump both say that it's happening while Aurora is Mayor and Police Chief say that it's grossly exaggerated. You can't get much more local and better ground reporting than from the Aurora Sentinel, who's been on this story since the beginning. Editor and publisher of the Aurora Sentinel, Dave Perry joins us now in the KOA Common Spirit Health Hotline. Dave, thanks for coming on with this. What do we know? What is your reporting revealed about the Venezuelan gangs or the issues in Aurora? We've been following the story from the beginning, and we've been able to keep our readers surprised of what we can actually substantiate, and that's been the problem with the story from the beginning is that there's been a lot of allegations on both sides of the story. What we've been able to do, and a lot of the other media as well, is tell our readers, here's what we can tell you we know for certain and what the facts portray of what's really going on. Right now the story has evolved to where we're looking closely at the three apartments that are involved in the controversy, finding out who's owned them for how long, how many years, how they acquired the properties, the condition they were in when they acquired the properties, and what's gone on inside of each one of these apartment complexes over the last two years since the Venezuelan immigrants started coming to the metro area, and then moving into some of these and other properties. Dave, when you- Oh, we can tell you. Go ahead. I just wanted to say that what we can show our readers is that a lot of allegations, just like Mayor Mike Coffin said, these are wildly overblown, that this is not Aurora's first radio with a problem neighborhood that is one square mile out of 160 square miles of the city, and that for the past 20 years the city has had problems with all kinds of issues within this neighborhood, and this is just the latest. Dave, when we're looking at the situation of these three apartment complexes, it's been a lot of finger-pointing with everybody blaming somebody else based on the research and the knowledge that you guys have done in your writing so far. Who do you think is most to blame? As it come to the apartment owners, Governor Polis or Mayor Mike Johnson as the reports that they are allegedly bringing migrants into Aurora, or the migrants or the nonprofits that are helping to aid in the migrants in the situation, is it a combination of everything? What can we clarify of what is and is not true at this point? As far as the allegations that Council person Jurinsky made saying that the Denver mayor and the governor of Colorado conspired to move huge numbers of migrants into this community, we've seen nothing like that, and in talking with both of those officials for the last six months to a year about the issue surrounding the migration of more than 40,000 people into the metro area, they've done everything that we've seen that you would expect them to do to aid the communities and the cities in trying to deal with this. If there's somebody who is to blame or something that is to blame, it really is the federal government here that knew that 40,000 people had descended like refugees into the metro area and adequately provided resources for Denver and Aurora to manage this kind of of an influx of people. As far as the properties themselves, it's very clear that CBZ management took these properties over in very poor condition and the documentation that the city has provided, which is really substantial, makes it clear that there were several properties or problems identified from the beginning, and that the property managers did not address these, and the situation just got worse and worse with public health problems, with no electricity, no plumbing, massive amounts of garbage and verminent, and these problems were never addressed. From your reporting, do you get the sense, and I'm not asking you necessarily to fill in the blanks, but the sense that the apartment owners, CBZ, they're using the gangs as an excuse for their poor management of these facilities? Absolutely. The evidence is very clear, and this company has just started a Twitter account a little over a week ago for the sole purpose of rerunning their allegations, which need to be addressed. Nobody argues that what they have found or what they have seen is really troublesome and needs to be addressed by the police and also with the health department and the city. But as far as anyone coming to us that has lived within these units or anyone who has watched these units or neighborhoods saying that the gangs by themselves forced the hand of the property owner or anyone into a terrible living situation, we've seen no evidence of that, nothing that we can substantiate or that's credible. Dave, broadening this out a little bit from your experience and your coverage, what has Aurora been like after the apartment migrant situation went viral after former president Trump even mentioned the city by name in a debate? What is just the overall environment been like in the city? We've talked to several people who, their relatives and their friends from across the country have called and asking, are you okay? And anyone who lives here or visits here on a regular basis knows that nothing has changed. It was a lot of consternation, a lot of hyperbole and hysteria. But if you were to drive through northwest Aurora and go up and down Colfax and visit some of the incredible restaurants and shops up there, you would see absolutely no difference on just a day to day basis. This is all between the ears of politicians and people with an agenda trying to elevate this issue into something that it's really not. Dave, did you get a chance to reach out to anybody on the former president's team when he came to, I say Aurora, it's Aurora, Jason down at the Gay Lord. Have you had conversations with Councilwoman Jirinsky about this issue? We've covered that. Our reporters have talked with Councilwoman Jirinsky since the beginning of July when there was an issue at a mall parking lot where it was overwhelmed with more than 4,000 people who were having some kind of impromptu rally about the Venezuela and presidential election. And so we've talked with her, we've covered her, and we have offered space in our stories and papers for her opinions. And final question from us, Dave, just curious if you've received any criticism or blowback for your reporting? Oh, yeah. The hate mail emeter is off the charts here that this is an energized group of people who, like I said, apparently have an agenda. And they want to make sure that their voices are heard. We're happy to do that in the front end of the newspaper through our reporting and also on the op-ed section. Anyone who has a letter. But if you read comments on our stories or any of the stories from the media here, it's highly charged. It's very volatile. And it's worrisome that people are willing to push this issue to a level and a degree where it really hurts the city, the whole city. And it also hurts that immigrant community, not just the people from Venezuela, but this is a city where one in five people aren't born in this country to live here, and they all feel endangered and uneasy by this kind of attention. And Dave, I should have asked this. I apologize. It just came to me now. Have you had conversations with the new police chief, Chad Chamberlain, on this and what has he shared? We did. And one of the first days that we met with him, he was very adamant in saying that they don't want to be in the middle of anything like this, and that they don't want to enforce immigration law, that they can't. That if they do that, immediately immigrants become wary and suspicious of police, and then they become victims of crime, or if they're involved in a crime, like even a traffic accident or something, they bold because they're afraid that the police are going to arrest them, detain them, and deport them. And he also appreciated coming from Los Angeles, which is also a very diverse community. There's a lot that diversity has to offer, and I think he has a keen appreciation of that. Editor and publisher of the Aurora Sentinel, it's Dave Perry. Dave, thank you so much for your time and your coverage on this. We truly appreciate it. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one member FDIC. I don't know if you know this, but when you don't have time to read the Washington Post, you can listen to it. Almost every article has a listening option, and right now you can become a Washington Post subscriber for just 50 cents a week. It's an incredible deal. Stay on top of what's happening by signing up at washingtonpost.com/pod. That's washingtonpost.com/p-o-d. The sighting on what to listen to is hard. Using ZoomO to stream music from iHeart90's radio is easy. Or play iHeart Country, or hip-hop beats. Your choice, all for free. Stream easy with ZoomO Play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle. This November, get cozy and stay in from Movie Night with Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford and Glenn Close, and The Art of War starring Wesley Snipes, all streaming free on ZoomO Play. Go to play.zoomo.com now. Life is hard. ZoomO is easy.