Aurora has been getting a bad rap of late. I just returned from holiday in southern Florida with my girlfriend, who happens to live in a rather nice part of southern Aurora. We were attending a wedding, which naturally drew people from many parts of the country; whenever we were asked by anyone where we lived my girlfriend would respond accordingly, and the universal response was one of mild horror and a reference to occupation by Venezuelan gangs. We considered just telling people she was from North Parker.

Obviously, not all of Aurora is in the clutches of an illegal foreign street gang, which we took pains to point out. That does not alter the fact that there are a few places in the city that are.

Stories like this are prone to media embellishment, not to mention being crack cocaine for online provocateurs and conspiracy theorists, and no doubt there is an element of that at play here. But the opposing sin has been committed as well, that of ignoring or dismissing the reports, predominantly by prominent Democrats for whom the revelation of these activities would prove politically harmful in an election year.

But this is not a situation that can, or should, be blithely dismissed or made light of. As Mayor Mike Coffman said, it is “a nightmare situation.”

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So what do we know? Well, we know that the Venezuelan-based prison gang Tren de Aragua is operating in Colorado, including in Aurora. The Aurora Police earlier this week released a list of ten documented Tren de Aragua members they have had varying levels of contact with, along with their pending charges, which range from theft and felony menacing to attempted murder and accessory to homicide. We know the gang had effectively seized control of a few apartment complexes in the northern part of Aurora. And we have correspondence from the apartment managers to the Attorney General’s office outlining their concerns about this a few months ago.

Clearly there is a plethora of criticism to go around. Some city officials in Aurora deserve a great deal for obfuscating early on, dismissing the reports and trying to divert blame and attention from the criminals to the beleaguered apartment managers. Kudos to certain city councilmembers, particularly Danielle Jurinsky, for sounding the tocsin.

On the other hand, some space should be given to Mayor Coffman and the brand-new Aurora police chief, Todd Chamberlain. The mayor is to be commended for recognizing the severity of the problem, with neither exaggeration nor understatement. The new chief has his work cut out for him, having not only to deal with one of the most serious criminal problems the city has known, but also with the city’s rowdy, vocal, and increasingly dangerous far-left element, which detests law enforcement and sympathizes with the criminal gangs.

The existence of this problem is a symptom of larger issues. The first and most obvious is the illegal immigration crisis, which has been spilling for months from the border to towns and cities across the nation. It has not been helped by overly-accommodationist policies coming from the state and Denver. No, not all “newcomers”, as the City of Denver insists on calling them, are criminal gang members. But some of them obviously are, and diverting millions of dollars from municipal budgets away from the things municipalities should be doing — like policing the streets — to obliging the illegal immigrants is not especially helpful. Neither are policies which prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating and coordinating with federal authorities.

This problem is also a symptom of the anti-police attitude that has dominated since 2020, and which has effectively handcuffed law enforcement — allowing lawbreakers to gain a foothold. It is probably safe to say that had Aurora police been allowed to do their jobs, this would never have gotten as far as it did. The gang situation in Aurora provides a glimpse of what happens to a society when policing and criminal justice is reduced to a game where the ACLU sets the rules.

Last night’s presidential “debate” offered little in the way of hope for any restoration of sanity. When the issue of illegal immigration came up, Harris changed the topic to Trump’s rallies. Trump, for whom the issue ought to have been a slam-dunk, chose instead to be baited and to prattle on about illegal immigrants eating kittens. The job will come down to the Aurora police, and their new chief, operating under the sober guidance of Mayor Coffman and those city council members not ideologically blinded to the realities on their streets, to restore order, justice, and the good name of Aurora.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.