DENVER — The apartment complex where armed alleged members of a Venezuelan gang were seen on video breaking into an occupied unit, fueling Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to target migrants, has been ordered closed by the city of Aurora, Colorado.
The Edge at Lowry will close sometime next month after the city was granted an emergency court order to shut down the five-building complex because it has become a criminal nuisance, city spokesman Ryan S. Luby said Wednesday.
The city filed the petition last week after several armed and suspected members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang also known as TDA, were alleged to have kidnapped, bound and pistol-whipped two people at the complex last month.
City officials did not say what set off the dispute.
“We needed to get ahold of that property because it was being completely unmanaged,” City Attorney Pete Schulte said at a news conference this week. “Nobody at that premise is going to prevent individuals from committing crimes.”
He said the complex and its intruders posed an imminent threat to the public’s welfare and safety.
Nine of the 16 people involved in the alleged kidnapping are charged with various counts, including first-degree assault, aggravated robbery and extortion, the Aurora Police Department said in a statement.
It was unclear whether any of the 16 were gang members. Police said all were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
About 60 units in the complex are occupied, including some vacant apartments that gang members and squatters are using illegally, city officials said, adding that they are working with Arapahoe County and other community partners to provide relocation assistance for legitimate residents.
During an investigation, officers found guns hidden in the walls of some units, city officials said. Records indicate officers searched five apartments on Dec. 17 and found at least three handguns, extended magazines and multiple knives.
The building is owned by Five Dallas Partners LLC and operated by CBZ Management LLC. Neither responded to requests by phone and email for comment.
The apartment buildings drew national attention in August when a viral video surfaced of armed suspected gang members breaking into an occupied unit.
Trump, then on the campaign trail, took aim at Aurora, claiming the city had been overtaken by Venezuelan gangs, and he repeatedly claimed during a presidential debate that the TDA had taken over the apartments.
Weeks later, during a campaign rally in Aurora, Trump revealed his plans to target undocumented gang members in the mass deportations he said would begin once he took office. He called his initiative “Operation Aurora.”
At the time, local authorities acknowledged the gang had a small presence in the city, but they insisted it had not taken over the complex. Some residents agreed the allegations were overblown, but others said they believed it was happening.
As of July 2024, there were 435,719 convicted criminal immigrants in the U.S. who were not under Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention, according to the federal agency. It did not say how many of them may have been gang members.
The alleged kidnapping last month sealed the fate of the Edge at Lowry, which city officials called a distressed property with many “unlawful tenants who moved into vacant apartments without applying for a lease or application.”
Mayor Mike Coffman declined to comment.
At the news conference announcing the closing, Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said, “The city of Aurora has seen a major problem that’s been infecting our community.” He said the property was “crime-infested.”
Jessica Prosser, Aurora’s director of Housing and Community Services, said the property is uninhabitable, citing trash abatement orders and $70,000 in outstanding water, utilities and gas bills.
