For the past week, Donald Trump has been repeating the same story about a Venezuelan gang supposedly taking over a residential building in Colorado—but everyone, from the residents to the police, says that the story is complete fiction.
Residents of The Edge at Lowry Apartments in Aurora, Colorado, held a press conference Tuesday to hit back at right-wing claims that their building has been taken over by a violent Venezuelan gang.
Last week, a video that appeared to show armed gang members speaking Spanish and storming into an apartment complex began circulating online. The video was boosted by City Council member Danielle Jurinksy and Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, who took to Facebook to call for an emergency court order to clear the building. The story was promptly picked up by conservative media outlets and then dutifully regurgitated by Trump as an anti-immigrant talking point.
During his chaotic messaging event in Potterville, Michigan, on Friday, the Republican presidential nominee referred to the “skit” video as evidence of a worsening immigration crisis, which he argued has led to an increase in violent crime. In reality, violent crime is at its lowest levels in five years .
“You haven’t seen even the beginning of this migrant crime,” Trump said, according to KFOX14 . “And you know, they have a hat that said, ‘Trump was right about everything,’ and I have to say, I pretty much was right about everything.”
The Aurora Police Department posted a video statement Saturday that debunked the outrageous story.
“We’ve been talking to the residents here, and learning from them to find out what exactly’s going on, and there’s definitely a different picture,” said Interim Chief Heather Morris.
“I’m not saying that there’s not gang members that don’t live in this community, but what we’re learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex.”
Morris said she’d also been told that residents were not paying rent to gang members, as some on the right had speculated.
On Monday, Coffman, following up on his blatant fearmongering, also visited The Edge and said that although conditions were bad, residents weren’t afraid of gang violence. Instead, they just wanted the building to be maintained. He baselessly suggested that the building was run down because management had been “chased” off the premises.
During their press conference to set the record straight, Edge residents disputed the right-wing claims that their building had been taken over by a Venezuelan gang. Residents said that they were living in uninhabitable conditions as a result of neglect from CBZ Management, which was also responsible for another Aurora building where there was a mass eviction last month, according to Denver7.
Oscar Rojas, a tenant who is from Venezuela, told Denver7 that the right-wing firestorm made him feel targeted. “I’m scared to go out. They’re accusing all of us at the complex of being in gangs, and this is completely false,” Rojas told the outlet. “It’s completely false. There are good people here, families. There’s always going to be crime everywhere.”
Even though the story has proved to be false, there is little indication that Trump will stop telling it. Even after the police came out with their statement, Trump referred to “tough young thugs” who were “taking over buildings” with their “big rifles” during a conspiracy theory–laden podcast interview on Tuesday.
“We’re not going to let this happen,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let them destroy our country.” He then seamlessly transitioned into his stand-by line about immigrants coming from foreign prisons, jails, and mental institutions.
The same day, Trump started pushing another story that turned out to be fake. On Monday, a 911 call alleged that 32 Venezuelan gang members had overrun an apartment building in Chicago, bringing motorcycles into the courtyard, filling the stairwells, and flashing firearms at residents. Several far-right social media accounts boosted the outlandish call, including Libs of TikTok and Elon Musk .
When officers arrived at the building, they found no migrants with guns or motorcycles, a source told The Chicago Tribune ’s Armando L. Sanchez. Residents in the area and migrants living at the building confirmed to the Tribune that the claims in the call were completely unfounded.
Trump’s wild, ultimately baseless stories about migrant crime are likely to continue, and reproduce into more and more unsupported claims to fit the former president’s anti-immigrant narrative.
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