Disputing claims of gang takeover, Aurora tenants protest ‘slumlord’ owner

Tenants at several properties owned by CBZ Management held a press conference on Sep. 3, 2024 to dispute claims of armed gang takeovers and redirect attention to longstanding habitability issues in their buildings. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

Residents at an Aurora apartment complex on Tuesday disputed the viral claims of an armed gang takeover that thrust their building into the national spotlight last week, seeking to redirect attention to a “slumlord” owner who has let their buildings and several others across the city fall into disrepair.

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

Joined by tenants-rights advocates and community organizers, Jimenez and other residents at rental properties owned by New York-based CBZ Management showed receipts of their rental payments, photos of trash pileups and dead mice caught in traps in their apartments. Nearly a dozen tenants spoke and answered questions from reporters. While some referred to what appeared to be a break-in attempt or other criminal offense captured on a widely circulating video, they dismissed widespread claims that a Venezuelan gang has taken control of their buildings or is shaking down residents for rent.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

“The good that exists here is better than the bad,” said Francy Rodriguez, another tenant who spoke through a translator. “We are not all just Venezuelans, we are not just Colombians — we are all of us together. We are good people.”

Local controversy over living conditions and reports of criminal activity at several Aurora apartment buildings has simmered for weeks. But a surge of national attention followed the circulation last week of a 15-second video clip that showed a group of armed men knocking on an apartment door and entering the unit.

In recent days, Aurora’s Republican mayor, its interim police chief and a conservative city council member have all offered differing characterizations of the nature and extent of the alleged gang activity. Far-right political commentators have described the situation in sensational terms, blaming Democrats for “migrant gangs taking over Aurora,” and falsely claiming that violent crime in the city — the third largest in Colorado, with a population of roughly 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, declaring it uninhabitable after years of code violations. City leaders have said they will seek an emergency court order declaring the company’s other properties a “criminal nuisance,” allowing the city to shut them down and evict their residents.

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

Tenants at the company’s buildings said they’ve received racist messages and threats of violence from unknown individuals in the wake of last week’s national media attention, and have been alarmed by social media rumors like one claiming the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was en route to Aurora. They fear they’ll have nowhere else to go if the city moves forward with plans to clear the buildings out.

“There’s nobody charging a fee to live here, nobody threatening us,” Sarimar Marin, who lives at Whispering Pines, another CBZ-owned property in Aurora, told Newsline in an interview. “There’s only working families and good people who live here.”

Years of problems

The specifics of what has happened in recent months at several CBZ Management properties in Aurora remain in dispute. But what’s beyond doubt is that they followed years of documented complaints about abysmal 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 about Aurora apartment complexes being “taken over” by gangs were circulated among far-right Colorado political figures in late July. Representatives of CBZ Management repeated the 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 slumlords” who were attempting to shift blame for problems they caused.

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

Habitability issues at the building, which was formerly known as the Bahamas Apartments, made local headlines in 2021, when residents reported issues ranging from pests and trash pileups to broken appliances, damaged railings and a collapsed ceiling caused by a falling toilet. In early 2023, the building was in the news again, with tenants telling Denver7 they were dealing with mold, leaks, flooding and a lack of heat for several months in the winter.

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

In an Aug. 13 statement on the Fitzsimons Place condemnation, a City of Aurora spokesperson said the blame “rests solely with CBZ Management and its principals, the owners and managers of the property, who have repeatedly failed their tenants for years by allowing the building and property to fall into a state of complete disrepair.”

The area of northwest Aurora where several CBZ properties are located, on the edge of the city’s border with Denver, has long struggled with elevated crime rates. Multiple crimes have been reported in the vicinity of The Edge at Lowry in recent weeks, 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 say .

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 metro Denver and Colorado as a whole have been on a sustained decline since late 2022 . Significant numbers of migrants began arriving in January 2023, and new arrivals peaked between October 2023 and January of this year before dropping off precipitously, according to data from Denver city officials.

Differing characterizations

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

It’s unclear whether the video is connected to the fatal shooting reported the same day, and officials with the Aurora Police Department have declined to comment directly on the footage, saying in an Aug. 28 statement that “it would be improper at this time for the city and APD to make any conclusory statements about specific incidents or provide details about law enforcement strategy and operations.”

Denver-area law enforcement agencies have acknowledged for weeks that members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization, are present in Colorado, linking them to crimes like a June 24 jewelry store robbery 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 fire on or attack law enforcement.”

Aurora police maintain that the gang’s activity is “isolated” and small compared to other criminal organizations operating within the metro area. But speculation about Tren de Aragua’s influence has been fueled by a handful of local conservative political figures, including Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinksy and John Fabbricatore, a Republican former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official running a long-shot campaign for the congressional seat held by Aurora Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow.

Jurinksy has claimed that “areas of our city are being taken over,” and baselessly linked a July 28 gathering at a shopping center parking lot, where a crowd of thousands assembled to await Venezuelan election results, to Tren de Aragua activity. Fabbricatore has attributed some of his assertions about the gang to “anonymous reports from local officers.”

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

APD officials have continued to dismiss claims that Tren de Aragua has taken over entire apartment complexes.

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

Coffman’s message and tone regarding the situation have been fluid in recent days, sometimes shifting between one interview and the next. He pushed back last week on “ hysteria ” that he said was making it more difficult to help people who may have been victimized by the gang, but also spoke of an “ enemy force ” operating in the community as a result of the “ failed policy ” of the Biden administration.

After having dismissed claims of a gang takeover of the Fitzsimons Place complex, Coffman in an Aug. 29 interview with 9News said he was now concerned that there are “two to three buildings” in the city where gangs have “pushed out the property manager and are extorting the tenants.” He did not identify the properties, and said that police have “ongoing operations” to investigate and resolve the situation.

Coffman visited The Edge at Lowry on Monday, joined by APD officers. In a social media post, he struck a new tone regarding the company he’d recently decried as “out-of-state slumlords.”

“Obviously, the goal is to get these properties under the control of the owners as soon as possible and we will be meeting with representatives for the owners this week to discuss how to get that done,” Coffman wrote.

But residents and community advocates said Tuesday that vulnerable tenants are the ones about to be punished for problems caused by an absentee landlord’s neglect. Several tenants said that during his visit on Monday, Coffman refused to listen to their concerns.

“The city is choosing to meet with the property owner, and is not choosing to listen directly (to) the tenants who have years and years of evidence against the property owner, and also deserve a meeting to talk to them about the conditions and the reality of the situation,” said V Reeves, an organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver, a homelessness advocacy group. “These families deserve the opportunity to have resources and time to move somewhere safe.”

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST