Aurora, Colorado, Officials: Trump Claims Untrue

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After former President Donald Trump called out Aurora, Colorado, during the presidential debate, city officials released a statement saying Tren de Aragua “has not ‘taken over’ the city,” Axios Denver reported.

“You look at Springfield in Ohio. You look at Aurora in Colorado,” Trump said Tuesday. “They are taking over the towns. They are taking over buildings. They’re going in violently.”

Republican Mayor Mike Coffman and Republican City Council member Danielle Jurinsky, chair of the council’s Public Safety, Courts and Civil Service Policy Committee, released the statement “with the full endorsement of City Manager Jason Batchelor and the Aurora Police Department.”

The statement read in part:

“We would like to clear the record about the widely reported presence of Tren de Aragua (TdA) in Aurora and across the metro area. We want to provide an update about the facts of the situation and the Aurora Police Department’s collaborative, ongoing efforts to investigate and aggressively pursue criminal activity linked to TdA members and associates.

“The city’s duty is to make sure it gathers and presents factual, accurate, and comprehensive information about any issue affecting the community. We reiterate that the safety, security, and well-being of community members and visitors is of paramount concern to us and the city.

“As for the perception and reality of public safety in Aurora, please understand that issues experienced at a select few properties do not apply to the city as a whole or large portions of it. TdA has not ‘taken over’ the city. The overstated claims … are simply not true. Again, TdA’s presence in Aurora is limited to specific properties, all of which the city has been addressing in various ways for months.

“For some time, well before concerns about TdA in Colorado generated national attention, APD had been arresting people for various criminal activities who had suspected, but not necessarily confirmed, TdA connections. To date, APD has now linked 10 people to TdA and has arrested eight of those people. Two of the eight individuals who were taken into custody were involved in a July shooting at one of the specific properties in the city that have experienced issues with TdA activity. In line with these arrests, we can also now confirm that criminal activity, including TdA issues, had significantly affected those properties.”