CENTER OF GRAVITY
How Aurora became the focus of a political controversy about immigration
Open letter to Trump — Aurora embraces diversity, so
Mr. Trump, you say that you are driven to run for president again because you want to help people.
If you’re being honest about that, please don’t come to Aurora.
This city of almost 400,000 desperately needs assistance, but you’re not offering that.
We’ve watched what you and your running mate, Sen. JD Vance, have done in Springfield, Ohio. The proven lies that the both of you have inflated about Haitian immigrants there eating pet dogs and cats have inflicted chaos on that community. Your cruel fabrication has been repeatedly debunked by Republican officials there, and even the people who inadvertently inspired the calamity with careless social media posts.
The people who made those posts, as well as most of America, had no idea you would create an hysterical false narrative to seize on the fear and hatred that afflicts so many of your supporters.
In Springfield, and across the nation, you played to your supporters’ greatest weaknesses in trying to cement their allegiance to you. You seized on their fear of dark-skinned and foreign people. You capitalized on your supporters’ inability or unwillingness to think critically, and for themselves, about the odious things you say and do.
Your constant riffs on Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, Asians and others, couched as “Mexicans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Iranians,” feed your supporters’ irrational fear of people who look and sound different from themselves. You have called them “vermin,” “rapists,” “murderers,” “animals,” and said that ,“They are destroying the blood of our country.”
We know what you have heard from people like GOP House Rep. Lauren Boebert, who does not represent Aurora, and GOP Aurora City Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky, who sits on the council but does not come close to representing the attitude of the majority of Aurora residents.
Jurinsky ignited the falsified controversy that has attracted you. She has repeatedly demonized the Venezuelans, who were first trafficked to the Denver and Aurora area by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about two years ago as a political stunt.
On social media posts and on Fox News broadcasts, Jurinsky has repeatedly, falsely claimed that Venezuelan gangsters had taken over entire apartment complexes and parts of the city.
The handful of Venezuelans accused of being members of
there’s
nothing here for you
gangs pales against the hundreds of other residents in the region linked as members of other gangs.
Jurinsky apparently didn’t anticipate you would weaponize her deceit even further and tell the nation that Aurora was completely overrun with Venezuelans and the gang members those immigrants have infected the region with. Or, Jurinsky didn’t think through how such a vicious and irresponsible deceit could backfire on whatever motivated her to undertake such a scheme. It has endangered the lives of hundreds of thousands of Latinos and Hispanics now at risk of being accused of being Venezuelan gangsters, simply by existing.
Jurinsky either didn’t understand nor care that Aurora’s version of “eating the pets” could repel future businesses from coming here, turn future residents away and hurt existing small businesses that depend on people from the region to come and shop and eat here.
Who wants to come to a community “overrun” by Venezuelan gangsters?
You say that you do, Mr. Trump, and it’s clear why.
But what you don’t understand is that, while Aurora, like Denver, is struggling with the sheer volume of Venezuelan immigrants trying to make the region their home, this city is no stranger to diversity and immigration. Like all large cities, Aurora and Denver struggle with crime, homelessness, housing, education — and balancing freedom with responsibility.
More than half of Aurora is not white. All of the city’s state, and congressional representatives are liberals, progressives and moderates. Those representatives are Black, Christian, Latino, White, Jewish, Muslim and strong pro-
ponents of ensuring everyone who lives here has a working chance at achieving their American Dream. The state’s gay governor once created a school here just for immigrants to boost their chances of success.
Several of Aurora’s boulevards are packed with restaurants and markets that boast every cuisine and eclectic grocery item from across the globe. They offer everything from exquisite Ethiopian stews to stellar Vietnamese phos to tantalizing arepas and unheard of Iraqi flatbreads and handmade tofus and white Siberian borscht and Japanese ramen broth like you’ve never had before.
This is a city where the local Costco looks like the bustling lobby of the United Nations headquarters. Very few people here care or even notice that some of us wear burkas, huaraches, keffiyehs, Roebucks, yarmulkes or turbans. Nobody is offended or put off by the fact that so many people who live here sound like the string of PA announcements in an international airport.
Aurora is not afraid of diversity. It embraces it. After decades of this once-blue-collar military and farming community turning less and less “white,” Aurora residents have learned that we all have so much in common, that our languages, races, religions and sexuality are the things that least define us, individually, and as a community. It isn’t always easy. And that’s where Aurora needs help. The government watched as 40,000 Venezuelan immigrants came here. They can’t easily get work credentials and some not at all. Despite this, they are anxious to work and determined to be able to. We need the government to provide fast and easy work permits. We need resources to help people who have nothing and
who don’t speak any English learn to assimilate into our community. They are no less refugees here than the Hurricane Katrina victims sent from Louisiana by the U.S. government almost 20 years ago.
We need money and resources to help our newest neighbors help themselves.
What Aurora doesn’t need is for you to demonize these members of our community, or anyone. We get that cultivating fear and hate among your followers somehow brings you satisfaction, or that you see it as a way to propel you back to the White House.
That’s not what most of Aurora is about. Sure, we have a small but vocal and strategically placed minority of people too naive or indifferent to the catastrophic danger of demonizing people, but you can ignore them, like we normally do.
There is, however, nothing for you here.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
DAVE PERRY Editor
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Editorials Sentinel
Until we elect leaders willing to control guns, shootings will continue
The end of a blistering summer this week and the rising price of gasoline don’t matter to the families of 10 people gunned down in a Boulder grocery store three years ago.
The same for families of the four people gunned down outside a strip of nightclubs in Birmingham, Alabama this week, just out enjoying the weekend before four were killed and dozens others injured by gunfire.
And little seems to make any difference for the families of the four people gunned down by a fellow student at Apalachee High School in Georgia several days ago.
So much about these most recent mass shooting stories in the news is the same. Mass shooters easily get guns, often assault weapons or guns modified to look at fire like assault weapons.
In the case of the 14-year-old Georgia boy who killed two students and two educators at his school, his own father bought the boy the AR-15-style rifle.
The family of the King Soopers shooter, Ahmad Alissa, had long known Alissa was mentally ill. So ill, that his father thought he was possessed by an evil spirit.
Despite that, it was easy for him to get a gun restyled as an assault rifle, complete with huge, illegal magazines, able to hold enough ammunition to inflict the very collateral damage he did, injuring almost 40 others during his rampage.
He was convicted of the murders this week. His attorneys failed to persuade a jury that he was insane at the time of the shootings.
There is no doubt that these deeply disturbed people should not be permitted to have access to guns. Neither should the people less or more disturbed who shoot hundreds of Americans every day.
Each time someone guns down people in a store, a school, a theater or even a town square, past victims and families are terrorized again, along with the rest of us.
These past surviving massacre victims and their families remember back to the “thoughts and prayers” they, too, received from people like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a long, list of sordid fellow Republicans and Democrats alike who offered nothing else to stem the plague of gun violence in the nation.
The nation has for years been awash in political leaders who gaslight the nation by insisting that it’s not the guns.
Of course it’s the guns.
It’s the guns, the lack of mental health care, the lack of education, the poverty and our national obsession with violence. But more than anything, the easy access and promotion of handguns, assault rifles, tactical gear and more are what have led to the shooting of more than 117,000 Americans each year and become the leading cause of death among children and teens in the country.
Facts compiled by Brady United from the Centers for Disease Control reveal just how much it is the guns in this country:
Every day, 321 people are shot in the United States. Among those:
• 111 people die from their gunshot wounds
• 210 survive gunshot injuries
• 95 are intentionally shot by someone else and survive
• 42 are murdered
• 65 die from gun suicide
• 10 survive their suicide attempt
• 1 is killed unintentionally
• 90 are shot unintentionally and survive
It’s the guns that are killing us from an industry that makes billions promoting a misguided revision of history, implying that founding fathers of the nation somehow supported our right to murder each other by the tens of thousands each year.
The only thing preventing the nation from escaping endless shootings and massacres is signaling that those who refuse to act against the gun industry to protect Americans will be removed at the ballot box from power.
It means people who normally sit out the trouble it takes to vote or who shrug their shoulders when confronted with pro-gun-industry propaganda and lies can no longer stand on the sidelines.
Few things are as certain in this world as the absolute guarantee that if a majority of American voters push back against elected leaders refusing to budge on gun control, gun control will come swiftly and widely.
But until those who refuse to succumb to our national fate as withering victims of gun massacres and violence become the majority on Election Day, the gun industry, their lobbyists, their bullies and their lackeys will continue to offer thoughts and prayers to the tens of thousands of shooting victims they do nothing for each year.
Vote ‘yes’ on Initiative 138 and make school choice a Constitutional right
Colorado has a long, bipartisan history of being a national leader in the school choice movement. Whether it’s charter schools, private schools, home schooling or other non-traditional options, we have long been on the forefront in ensuring educational choice for parents tailored to meet the unique needs of our kids.
Unfortunately, in recent years, choice has been under attack at the State Legislature. While current state law allows for charter schools, home schooling and other school choice options, state law can be changed at any time. Various groups have attempted to use the Legislature to chip away at the educational choice we enjoy in Colorado.
With school choice, parents aren’t forced to send their kids to underperforming local schools; they aren’t forced to send their special needs learner to a one-size-fits-all education setting; and they aren’t forced to send their kids to an unsafe environment if they’ve made the decision at-home or online learning will better prepare that young learner for their next phase of life.
As a proud graduate of a core knowledge public charter school, I can provide a first-hand account of how school choice helps prepare a young person to grow and thrive in their educational journey. I spent the first half of my elementary school years in a typical public school setting – kids roamed “open” classrooms where teachers had no control, I was told my poor handwriting didn’t matter because we had computers. A general lack of accountability led to little learning.
Fast forward to the second half of elementary school and middle school and I thrived under the structure and academic expectations of the public charter school I attended.
The right to school choice changed my life.
While the charter school my parents picked for me was the environment I needed to succeed, it wasn’t for everyone and that’s the beauty of school choice: parents are free to make a choice that is best for their child’s unique situ-
ation.
I believe every child in Colorado deserves an education that is tailored to their needs. Our kids deserve a rich, rewarding education that prepares them for adulthood. And that experience looks different for each and every kid. Some kids need schools that push for high academic achievement, while others need schools that teach according to different learning styles to address learning challenges. Other families see less traditional classroom environments as the best place for their kids to thrive.
The important fact is to ensure that families have a wide and diverse set of educational options.
That’s why the voters in Colorado have an important choice on the November ballot.
There is no guarantee that the wide range of options benefiting Colorado kids will always withstand the assault from powerful anti-choice, anti-accountability groups who lobby hard at the State Capitol. Our school choice rights are simple statutes that a majority of lawmakers and a willing governor can weaken or erase anytime they want. But our right to educational freedom is bedrock to the success of future generations, and our economy.
That’s why Initiative 138 is simple but powerful: will we vote to protect the rights we have now by putting them in the State Constitution? It doesn’t cost a dime or create any new programs. It simply removes school choice as a political pin cushion at the Capitol.
We have a choice to ensure future generations of Coloradans have the educational choices they deserve. We have a choice to ensure future generations of Coloradoans live in a state that values educational attainment, opportunity and achievement for all.
Please join me in supporting Initiative 138 and making school choice a Constitutional right in Colorado. Curtis Gardner is an At-Large Aurora City Councilmember and a board member for Cherry Creek Academy, a K-8 public charter school in Englewood.
COUNCILMEMBER CURTIS GARDNER, GUEST COLUMNIST
Party’s over?
AURORA POLICE SAY THEY’RE LOOKING TO BREAK UP BOTHERSOME BOOMTOWN BASHES
BY SUSAN GREENE, Sentinel Reporter in Residence
Residents on South Jamaica Street can’t wait for the weather to turn cold — so cold that crowds of young people will stop partying all night in a nearby parking lot as they have all summer.
“We’re hoping for rain, sleet or snow, for anything that will make them go away and their noise to finally stop,” one longtime homeowner told the Sentinel on Wednesday.
He and dozens of other residents near the corner of East Iliff Avenue and South Havana Street have been complaining to city government, Aurora Police and each other since the spring about what has become a regular, thrice-weekly meetup of teens and 20-somethings in a parking lot between a FirstBank and an Olive Garden. The meetups start at about 11:30 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and last until sun-up. They always involve Latin tech house music blasting from a truck tricked out with speakers the size of washing machines.
Councilmember Stephanie Hancock, whose Ward IV includes the parking lot, last week referred to those trucks as “floating discos.”
Neighbors, especially those on South Jamaica Street, say it’s one thing to have 30 to 100 young people drinking, smoking, urinating, vomiting and littering behind their homes three nights a week. But it’s quite another when the music is so loud and bass so low that residents say they feel its vibrations thumping all night long.
“It resonates even through my waterbed,” the homeowner told us.
“Even closing our windows and wearing ear plugs can’t block out the noise,” his neighbor said.
Both, along with three other residents we interviewed this week, asked that we not use their names in this story for fear that partiers might retaliate against them for complaining.
Parking lot parties, or raves, as they’re sometimes called, are nothing new in Aurora or elsewhere in Colorado, for that matter. High school football game goers have been tailgating as far back as anyone remembers, and Aurora’s youth have for decades gathered in lots at the old Buckingham Square, Town Center of Aurora, former Lowry Air Force Base and parks throughout the city.
This year, Aurora’s biggest parking lot rave triggered complaints about far more than the noise. On July 28, the day of Venezuela’s presidential election, between 2,000 and 4,000 people — mostly newcomers from that country — gathered in the parking lot of Aurora’s Gardens on Havana shopping center to celebrate what was expected to be President Nicolás Maduro’s defeat by opposition candidate Edmundo González. (Maduro later declared himself the winner of another six-year term in what many believe was a fraudulent election.) Drawn by messages on WhatsApp, people crowded there so quickly that customers and workers in the strip center struggled to leave its parking lot and others feared for their safety. After someone in the crowd fired a few gunshots into the air, a Target store and a few other businesses closed early as a precaution.
Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky posted on Facebook the next day about the “severity” of the situation, claiming there had been reports of theft and assaults in the crowd. “Thousands of these folks took over and completely shut down a part of our city. The police were totally over run (sic), and we’re (sic) forced to get out of the area for
their safety. A police car was shot up,” she wrote.
Her post and a flurry of social media chatter that followed prompted Aurora police to correct what it said was misinformation. The department debunked assertions that attendees rioted and damaged property, saying nobody was ticketed, arrested or hurt.
Large amounts of garbage was collected by store employees and volunteers the next day. The city has insisted there’s no evidence a police car was shot at. City spokesperson Ryan Luby said police officers were not forced out by the crowd, but were on-scene “for the entire event.”
Meanwhile, some Aurorans say raves have grown louder over the past few summers with the presence of high-volume speakers, and that some have popped up closer to residential areas like South Jamaica Street.
The area around East 12th Avenue and Dayton Street has over the last few years become a frequent rave site. Residents there have complained about frequent gunfire in addition to loud music.
The intersection of East 17th Avenue and Alton Street also has drawn all-night parties. Aurora police responded to complaints there on the night of Aug. 31, when neighbors said subwoofers were rattling their windows, and several cars had parked illegally and blocked the road. Officers impounded seven vehicles, including an SUV with the large stereo system, and issued summons to two people.
Aurora police remind the public that city ordinance prohibits unnecessary noise and disturbing the peace. In public and private places, city code reads, “It shall be unlawful for any person to make, continue, or cause to be made or continued any unreasonably
loud or unusual noise which seriously inconveniences other persons in the area.”
The Police Department also wants the public to understand that it is short-staffed and cannot respond to every complaint about excessive noise at a party or rave.
“We must prioritize calls for service depending on their severity and active nature, and Aurora 911 dispatches us accordingly,” Agent Matthew Longshore, a spokesman for the department, wrote in an email to the Sentinel. “There could be times when someone calls in for a loud music complaint, and the people are gone when we arrive. We continue to ask that our community report these incidents to better understand where and when they occur and work on a response plan to address these concerns, similar to what we did on Alton Street.”
At Hancock’s urging, Aurora’s new police chief said in his first week on the job that the department is looking for ways not just to break up parking lot raves mid-party, but also to prevent them from happening. Chief Todd Chamberlain told the Council’s Public Safety, Courts & Civil Service Policy Committee on Sept. 12 that he is considering staffing what he called a “party car” in which an officer would respond to complaints about parking lot raves and make the problem their priority duty. Although he wouldn’t commit to the idea until he weighs the need to control noise violations against other more violent crimes in the city, Chamberlain said, “Right now, I think we can get resources to start focusing on it specifically.”
City officials also are considering working with businesses whose parking lots attract raves to build barriers and that might make those spaces less conducive to parties.
Screenshot from an Aurora police video depicting a street rave Aug. 31 in the area of East 17th Avenue and Alton Street in Aurora.
AROUND AURORA
Aurora police legal adviser Pete Schulte tabbed by city lawmakers as permanent city attorney
The Aurora City Council has appointed the city’s legal police adviser as the new city attorney, city officials announced Sept. 20.
Pete Schulte, chief legal adviser for the police department, replaces former City Attorney Dan Brotzman, who stepped down in June as the top official over the department’s 65 lawyers and legal staff.
“Pete is an excellent leader, a skilled mediator and a trusted lawyer,” Mayor Coffman said in a statement. “He has already helped our city navigate some of its toughest legal challenges over the last three years, and I have total confidence in his ability to lead one of the largest public law offices in Colorado.”
Schulte’s career spans nearly 20 years in law, beginning as a prosecutor in Texas. Before pursuing a career in law, Schulte was a police officer in Texas. He worked as an officer while attending law school full-time at Southern Methodist University, according to a city statement.
His transition into the legal profession saw him initially working for the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, before moving into private practice and founding a law firm.
During his private practice years, Schulte handled more than 100 criminal and civil jury trials.
He went on to serve on the Dallas Board of Adjustment and then the Dallas Planning Commission. In 2018, Schulte returned to public sector law as a police legal advisor, a position that eventually brought him to Aurora in 2021 following a national recruitment effort.
In Aurora, Schulte has overseen Aurora’s legal compliance with a state-mandated consent decree. The city is currently under that decree, requiring a host of police and fire reforms focused on reducing the use of excessive force, especially when encountering people of color.
“I am honored that Mayor Coffman and the Aurora City Council have selected me to lead our talented team at the Aurora City Attorney’s Office,” Schulte said in a statement. “I am committed to transparency and being a good steward of our city’s public resources.”
Schulte’s tenure in the city so far hasn’t been without some controversy.
On April 15, 2023, Schulte was riding in a police vehicle with then-chief Art Acevedo when the two heard police radio traffic about a fight involving between 15 and 25 people near the Crossroads at City Center apartments in Aurora, according to an arrest affi-
davit.
When they arrived, they found a group screaming in Spanish who told them a woman had been injured, and one person pointed out two men running away as being involved in the fight. Schulte later told investigators that he told the men to stop, and that he was a police officer, before tackling one of them, Audiel Garcia-Contreras, to the ground.
As the two grappled with each other, Garcia-Contreras wrapped his arm around Schulte’s neck and choked him, while Schulte punched Garcia-Contreras. Officers eventually caught up with the two and arrested Garcia-Contreras, whom the affidavit described as intoxicated and smelling like alcoholic beverages.
Schulte was hospitalized with neck injuries. Garcia-Contreras pleaded guilty in April 2024 to assault charges related to the incident.
Early this year, Schulte was apparently poked but not provoked during an argument with Acevedo that got heated in January, saying the altercation captured on courthouse surveillance cameras was “nothing.”
“I didn’t think anything of it, just kind of went on my way,” Schulte said about a Jan. 12 row with Acevedo, caught on city video tape and reported by witnesses.”
Aurora Municipal Court hallway cameras showed Acevedo gripping the collar of Schulte’s suit jacket as the two men walk toward the courthouse’s rotunda on the morning of Jan. 12.
The two stop next to the rotunda, talking and gesturing at each other for about 20 seconds, before Acevedo appears to become frustrated with someone standing out of view of the cameras and moves on.
As the two enter the rotunda and are joined by then-interim deputy chief Heather Morris, other cameras show Acevedo becoming increasingly agitated while talking to Schulte.
Then, Acevedo appears to poke Schulte twice in the chest. Morris reacts to the first poke by folding her arms in front of her, while Schulte does not react. Acevedo then walks off, and the two follow the chief up a staircase.
Before leaving, the former chief waves toward a person who appears to have been photographing or recording the incident on their cell phone.
Schulte wouldn’t say what he and Acevedo were talking about that precipitated the poking but said it wasn’t uncommon for him and the chief to have similar “animated” interactions on the topic of public safety.
Both Schulte and Morris brushed off claims that the incident was anything more than an animated conversation.
Acevedo departed as interim police chief a few days later.
City Council formally approved Schulte’s contract at its Sept. 23 meeting.
— Sentinel Staff
Cassandra Ballard joins Aurora Sentinel news team
Award-winning Colorado journalist Cassandra Ballard joins the news staff of the Aurora Sentinel this week.
Ballard, who grew up in the metro area, comes to the Sentinel from the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, where she covered a variety of beats and issues.
“Cassandra’s dedication to ferreting out facts and details makes her a perfect addition to the Sentinel news team,” said Sentinel Editor Dave Perry. “She not only shares our demand for accuracy, she brings a keen appreciation for sharing news that people want as well as need.”
A recent takeout in the Post Independent followed the travails of a goat on the lam in Glenwood, a trying time for police and city residents.
Ballard attended metro-area schools, and she graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a degree in journalism.
She has been honored by peers for her work as an investigative journalist, government reporter, data-driven stories and features.
Readers can reach Ballard at cballard@sentinelcolorado.com. Follow Ballard at @CassEBallard on X and @ cassballa on Instagram.
— Sentinel Staff
Aurora
recycling and hauling
facility to help meet Colorado sustainability goals
Waste Management ceremoniously broke ground this week on a new recycling facility and hauling site in Aurora as part of a $100 million project aimed at expanding the state’s waste management capabilities.
The two facilities, which will be built on a 50-acre portion of a larger 160-acre parcel, are expected to be operational by mid-2026 and will employ more than 130 workers, according to Waste Management officials.
The project includes a 30,000-square-foot hauling site and an 84,400-square-foot recycling facility.
Both are being built adjacent to the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, and are designed to support Colorado’s growing demand for recycling services and lower-emission waste collection, state and Waste Management officials said in statements.
“In Colorado we are focused on building a more sustainable future, and efforts like this one can help us reach that goal,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement. “I am excited to see businesses such as Waste Management finding innovative ways to reduce waste and recycle efficiently, while helping Colorado continue leading in clean energy and sustainability.”
A key feature of the Aurora hauling site will be a fleet of more than 100
trucks powered by natural gas instead of diesel. The trucks are intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20% and lower nitrogen oxide emissions by 90%.
The recycling facility will have the capacity to process up to 168,000 tons of material a year, employing new sorting technologies to handle a variety of recyclables. Equipped with auger screens, optical sorters, and a plastic-film recovery system, the facility is designed to process materials at a rate of 40 tons per hour. Once sorted, recyclable materials will be baled and used in the production of new products.
Waste Management officials touted the investments as part of a broader $1.4 billion initiative across the United States and Canada aimed at upgrading recycling facilities through 2026. By then, the company expects to add 2.8 million tons of annual processing capacity, driven by rising demand for recycled content products.
“The construction of the WM Denver East hauling site and recycling facility represents our commitment to supporting local communities and enhancing recycling infrastructure in Colorado,” Jason Chan, Director of Business Development, said in a statement.
The project is also part of a state effort to increase environmental and sustainability goals. The new Aurora campus is seen as a critical component of advancing those objectives, according to state officials.
— Sentinel Staff
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
Colorado attorney general announces $50,000 grants so schools can cut student cell phone use
Colorado school districts will soon be able to apply for grants of up to $50,000 to help their students reduce cell phone use during the school day.
State Attorney General Phil Weiser announced the “Smartphone Challenge Initiative” Friday in the library of Grand Junction High School. The program is funded with money from the state’s $31.7 million lawsuit settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc.
The initiative is the second school district grant program aimed at improving student mental health funded with Juul settlement dollars. In June, Weiser announced a $20 million mental health grant program for school districts. Applications for that program are set to open in mid-October. In addition, Weiser recently announced 30 grants — also funded with Juul settlement money — to help youth quit vaping.
Weiser said in an interview with Chalkbeat that many schools don’t
have policies on phone use, or don’t enforce the ones they do have.
“We want schools to face this reality that phones, in many cases, are detrimental to learning and harmful, when kids are on these apps, to mental health,” he said.
A recent Chalkbeat survey of Colorado’s 20 largest school districts found that six have adopted stricter cell phone policies in the last two years. Six others, including Denver, Jeffco, and Aurora Public Schools, have no district cell phone policies.
Educators told Chalkbeat that besides being a chronic distraction in class, smartphones can be a vehicle for students to buy or sell drugs, bully others, and orchestrate fights.
About 95% of American teens own or have access to a smartphone, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center report. YouTube is the most popular app among teens, with TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram close behind.
Weiser said the Smartphone Challenge doesn’t envision one particular solution to rampant cell phone use, but rather encourages schools to experiment with different strategies.
“We’re challenging them to come up with a range of different policy options, enforcement options, cultural improvements,” he said.
Weiser said the new grant program was announced in Mesa County Valley District 51 to acknowledge the district’s efforts to cut cell phone use among students. A policy adopted for this school year bans cell phones all day in the district’s elementary and middle schools and bans them during class time in high schools.
In addition to awarding grants, the Smartphone Challenge will collect data this fall from school districts statewide on cell phone policies and needs. School districts must participate in that survey to be eligible for a grant.
A spokesperson for Weiser’s office said Smartphone Challenge grants will go out in early 2025 and that officials haven’t yet decided the number of grants that will be awarded. Once the grant projects are complete, the attorney general’s office will release a white paper sharing best practices for reducing student phone use.
— Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat
COPS AND COURTS
Police make arrest of Denver man, 20, in fatal Aurora liquor store shooting
Aurora police are asking for second-degree murder charges in the death of a man fatally shot Sept. 20 after some kind of dispute in the parking lot of an East Colfax liquor.
Police said a joint operation among Aurora and Denver police, as well as an FBI task force, led to the arrest Sept. 21 of Davonte McCoy Bletson, 20, of
Denver.
Arapahoe County courts officials said the affidavit for Bletson’s arrest was currently suppressed and unavailable to the public.
“The victim, a 38-year-old Aurora man, is a native of Venezuela,” police said in a statement Monday.
“The victim is not a resident of nearby Whispering Pines apartments, nor is he a resident of any of the other Aurora properties that have received significant media attention in recent weeks.”
Whispering Pines apartments is about two blocks from the location of the shooting and the subject of controversy over disputed allegations of Venezuelan gang activity at the complex and the other apartments in the area.
The victim’s identity, as well as an official cause and manner of death, will be released by the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office.
Police were called to the parking lot of Friends Liquors, 15500 E. Colfax Ave., at about 8:45 p.m. after reports of the shooting there.
Investigators said the shooting victim and another man had gone to the liquor store and became embroiled in an argument with two other men and a woman.
“The argument escalated to a physical fight, followed by shots fired,” Aurora police spokesperson Joe Moylan said in a statement.
The shooting victim was hospitalized with “multiple gunshot wounds,” Moylan said. “He died shortly after arriving at the hospital.”
“Witnesses told police the three suspects sped from the scene in a silver sedan following the shooting,” Moylan said.
Police did not say who among the suspects is accused of shooting the victim, or what the nature of the dispute was.
Bletson is currently being held in the Arapahoe County jail in lieu of $500,000 bond.
Police said anyone with information can call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Tipsters can remain anonymous and still be eligible for a reward of up to $2,000, police said.
— Sentinel Staff
Police: Aurora man, 20, wouldn’t disclose how he was shot and injured
Police said they were able to glean few details from an Aurora man shot and injured Sept. 21 by gunfire, because the man wouldn’t talk to officers about what happened.
A family member of the 20-year-
old man called 911 at about 8:30 a.m. from an apartment at 11152 E. 16th Ave., saying that the man had been wounded by gunfire.
“When officers arrived at the apartment, no one answered the door,” Aurora police spokesperson Joy Moylan said in a statement.
The man apparently found his own way to a nearby hospital before police arrived at the apartment.
“Officers responded to the hospital, but the patient is not cooperating with the investigation,” Moylan said.
“Officers have not yet been able to obtain any information about when and where the shooting occurred.”
Police said they will continue to investigate.
— Sentinel Staff
Barricaded man arrested in Aurora after nearly 4-hour standoff with SWAT unit
After hours of negotiation, Aurora police arrested a man barricaded in a north Aurora home Sept. 19 in the 14000 block of East 32nd Place with no reported injuries.
Residents near the home in the Sable-Altura neighborhood were told by police to “shelter in place” at about 8:15 p.m. as SWAT unit members attempted to arrest someone barricaded in a home.
Police said the man was persuaded to give up at about midnight Friday.
Police gave no details about the nature of the incident, and they asked nearby residents to remain inside and away from doors and windows during the standoff.
About 9:30 p.m., police said a police negotiator was brought in to resolve the stand-off and “bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion.”
— Sentinel Staff
Aurora man, 37, accused of groping, kidnapping girl 14 at apartment complex
Aurora police say a 37-year-old Aurora man briefly kidnapped and groped a 14-year-old girl Sept. 15 at an apartment complex near I-225 and East Sixth Avenue, according to court records and media reports.
The suspect, Jhon Noslin Balestrini-Ferrer, was arrested that after he allegedly propositioned the girl to “exchange money for sex” and forced her into his apartment, according to an Aurora Police arrest affidavit.
The affidavit from Arapahoe County and state courts redacted the age and sex of the victim. Both 9News and
•
KDVR Fox 31 reports cited Aurora police saying the victim was a 14-yearold girl. Balestrini-Ferrer’s apartment and the location of the alleged assault is on the 500 block of Potomac Street.
The girl described attempting “to get away but was overpowered by” him. Once inside the apartment, the child “was able to push (Balestrini-Ferrer) away and leave,” according to the affidavit.
The girl told police Balestrini-Ferrer groped her buttocks as she was getting away.
Balestrini-Ferrer faces charges of second-degree kidnapping, sexual assault on a child and enticement of a child. He is being held in lieu of $50,000 bond at the Arapahoe County jail and scheduled to appear in court Thursday.
A second suspect is also described as a 6-foot-tall male with light brown hair and a beard. Police did not report whether he, too, faces changes in the case. A third suspect, who witnessed the incident, was detained by police and released.
— Sentinel Staff
HOME BREWED POLITICAL STORM
How Aurora moved to the center of a national immigration debate
BY SUSAN GREENE, Sentinel Reporter in Residence
Aurora, a city infamous for its movie theater massacre and record of police misconduct, has a new cause for national notoriety: election-season fear mongering about its undocumented immigrants.
Assertions that a Venezuelan gang has taken over apartment complexes, scared away police officers and overrun parts of the city have gone so viral among some conservatives this election season that Donald Trump cited them in the Sept. 10 presidential debate and continues to embellish them on the campaign trail.
“In Aurora, Colorado, entire apartment complexes are being taken over by armed Venezuelan gangs with weapons the likes of which even the military doesn’t see,” Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin earlier this month. “They’re terrorizing residents and they’re just menacing the whole state. …And they’re vicious, violent people.”
Trump has since continued to issue deceits about the controversy, recently saying he would come here. As of press time, no announcement of a visit has been released.
The Sentinel has been reporting on the controversy surrounding Aurora’s Venezuelan migrant community since late July. Here’s what’s new and a review of what’s happened in the controversy since it began at the end of July.
How the controversy began
About 40,000 Venezuelans have migrated to Colorado in the last two years, most having walked or hitched rides across South America and through Central America to flee poverty, corruption and crime under the regime of President Nicolás Maduro. With help from federal grants passed through local nonprofits, many have rented low-rent apartments in metro Denver, including at three blighted complexes in northwest Aurora owned by the same out-ofstate company.
U.S. Census data shows that 5% of the population in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District – which includes Aurora – immigrated withing the past year from another country. Aurora has declared itself a “non-sanctuary city,” unwilling to spend local tax dollars on
services or programs for undocumented immigrants. Police, however, have for years made clear they cannot enforce federal immigration laws or risk pushing crimes committed by and against immigrants underground. Police here and across the state have insisted that undocumented immigrants will avoid police contact to avoid citizenship issues, creating a host of public safety problems. A 2019 state law prohibits local police from complying with ICE detainer orders.
On July 28, the day of Venezuela’s presidential election, between 2,000 and 4,000 people — mostly newcomers from that country — gathered in the parking lot of Aurora’s Gardens on Havana shopping center to celebrate what was expected to be Maduro’s defeat by opposition candidate Edmundo González. (Maduro later declared himself the winner of another six-year term in what many nations believe was a fraudulent election.) Drawn by messages on WhatsApp, people crowded into a kind of warm-weather meetup known as a “parking-lot rave.”
The flash-mob left some customers and workers in the strip center struggling to leave its parking lot and others fearing for their safety. After someone in the crowd fired a few gunshots into the air, a Target store and a few other businesses closed early as a precaution.
Aurora Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky posted on Facebook the next day about the “severity” of the situation, claiming there had been reports of theft and assaults in the crowd. “Thousands of these folks took over and completely shut down a part of our city. The police were totally over run (sic), and we’re (sic) forced to get out of the area for their safety. A police car was shot up,” she wrote. Her post and a flurry of social media chatter that followed prompted Aurora police to correct what it said was misinformation. The department debunked assertions that attendees rioted and damaged property, saying nobody was ticketed, arrested or hurt. The city has insisted there’s no evidence a police car was shot at. City spokesperson Ryan Luby said police officers were not forced out by the crowd, but were on-scene “for the entire event.”
Even before Luby’s fact check, Jurinsky had warned on social media of a cover-up by city officials and reporters.
“The media won’t make a big deal about it and will try to downplay it. Some of my own colleagues would probably even tell you there is nothing to see here…,” she wrote in her July 29 Facebook post.
The far-right council member said her interest in the event — and Venezuelan migrants more generally — was as much about politics as public safety.
“This is in the United States of America... this is in YOUR city. Please, please spread the word,” she wrote in that same post on Facebook. “This November’s election may, in fact, be the actual most important of your lives, your children’s lives, and your grandchildrens lives. Again, you all deserve the truth!”
Apartment complex shuttered
A few weeks earlier in July, the Biden administration had added a new group to its list of transnational criminal organizations: a Venezuelan prison gang called Tren de Aragua, also known as TdA. The treasury and justice departments say its members have dealt drugs, laundered money, attacked women and smuggled and trafficked people, including children, in several South American countries. News reports indicate some members have been operating in Chicago, New York and South Florida.
Law enforcement agencies say they have identified 10 people with documented TdA ties in metro Denver. Five of those men had been arrested by the time suspected TdA member Jean Torres Roman made headlines in early August when apprehended in connection with a violent robbery of a Denver jewelry store.
Denver’s mayor and police chief told multiple metro area media on Aug. 7 that the gang is on their radar.
A day later, Aurora police told Aurora’s City Council that they, too, were tracking TdA members in the city and had assigned four detectives to a regional task force investigating the connection between organized crime and immigrant communities. The department urged the public — including Venezuelans the
gang may prey on — to report gang activity.
Meanwhile, that same week in early August, word spread about Aspen Grove, a 98-unit apartment complex in northwest Aurora that city officials slated to close because of a host of city code and health violations. Those range from structural and mechanical problems to leaks, mold, uncollected trash and rat infestation.
Court documents show the city has identified Zev Baumgarten and his company, CBZ Management as the property owners. Baumgarten and his public-relations agent told the Sentinel that Aspen Grove had fallen into disrepair because TdA members had been squatting there, threatening and extorting his tenants and scaring away property managers. He said he had been urging Aurora Police since September to boot the gangsters out of the complex.
Baumgarten lives out of state, yet would not indicate where for fear, he said, of violence against him and his family.
Police records confirm some, albeit isolated gang activity at Aspen Grove. Jhonardy Pacheco-Chirinos and Jhonnarty Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos, two brothers believed to have ties to TdA, stand accused of involvement in a nonfatal shooting there on July 28. Jhonardy Pacheco-Chirinos had been arrested in March for allegedly assaulting someone in the complex.
Still, city officials said they were shutting Aspen Grove down not for gang-related reasons, but after more than two years of documented neglect and mismanagement that left the apartments uninhabitable.
“Let us be clear, the blame for this unfortunate circumstance 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 city’s Luby said in a statement.
But Jurinsky cast doubt on the city’s reasons for forcing tenants out of the complex.
“None of us buy that story that this is based on a code enforcement violation,” she said at the end of an Aug. 9 public safety committee
meeting, referring to herself and fellow council members Stepahnie Hancock and Steve Sundberg. “The three of us believe there is a huge gang problem.”
Despite city evidence disputing allegations of a gang takeover at Aspen Grove, Jurinsky insisted, “our opinions are not up for debate.”
City code enforcers cleared out and shut down the complex on Aug. 13, leaving hundreds of residents without homes.
One Venezuelan tenant named Ernesto — who asked that the Sentinel not use his last name because he is undocumented and fears deportation — said he worried Aurora police would profile him, inaccurately, as a TdA member just for having lived in the complex.
“No gang. Good guy. Good,” he said through a translator, his hands up as if to show he had nothing to hide.
Two other apartment complexes at issue
After the city closed Aspen Grove, Jurinsky stepped up her claims that Aurora city staff and police brass were “downplaying” what she portrayed as a gang crisis there, in other complexes owned by Baumgarten called The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines, and other parts of the city. She accused Democratic Gov. Jared Polis of being “silent,” in an effort to downplay the problem. And she mocked local news outlets for reporting assertions by city government and police that incidents involving TdA have been isolated and that its members have not overrun any apartment complexes.
“I don’t think Venezuelan gangs are a big safety concern in the city of Aurora,” Chris Juul, the acting deputy police chief told the Sentinel in early August.
Jurinsky has appeared repeatedly recently on Fox News and other right-wing media channels to advance her narrative that “This isn’t anything other than a complete gang takeover in parts of our city.” Venezuelan migrants, she said, “are a product of our current administration’s failed border policy,” echoing a popular talking point in conservative campaigns this election season.
At the end of August, Jurinsky invited a video crew from Denver Fox affiliate KDVR Channel 31 to follow her and Republican congressional candidate John Fabbricatore as they helped a tenant, Cindy Romero, move out of her apartment because of what she described as violence and intimidation by TdA. Romero’s complex, The Edge at Lowry on Dallas Street, is also owned by CBZ and Baumgarten.
Romero’s son gave the TV station surveillance video footage of what the politicians described as gang members climbing the stairs of his mother’s building with long guns and handguns in hand. Another clip appears to show men kicking in a different apartment door, possibly in the same building. Jurinsky insisted the footage proved her and Baumgarten’s story that TdA members had overrun his complexes. Police have not released what an investigation into the apartment depicted in the video and those filmed has revealed.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman — who had tried tempering alarm about the Venezuelan rave at the strip center a month earlier —then began mirroring Jurinsky’s alarm about The Edge at Lowry once the video footage made headlines and went viral on conservative social media.
“There are several buildings, actually under the same ownership, out-of-state ownership that have fallen to these Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman told Fox News on Aug. 29, claims that police and city officials have repeatedly disputed. “They in fact have pushed out the property management through intimidation and collected the rents.”
In several segments over a few weeks, Fox News interviewers kept expressing what they called “shock” about Aurora’s gang situation. Heather Morris, Aurora’s acting police chief at the time, pushed back against what she framed as exaggerations. From a courtyard at The Edge at Lowry, she filmed a video news release saying that, based on several days of
conversations with tenants there, she and her investigators found “There’s definitely a different picture” than the one Coffman and Jurinsky were painting.
“I’m not saying that there’s not gang members that… live in this community,” she said. “But what we’re learning out here is that gang members have not taken over this complex.”
Coffman, however, later that afternoon, Aug. 30, posted on his Facebook page that city government was working to secure an emergency court order to clear out and shut down The Edge at Lowry just as it had shuttered Aspen Grove weeks earlier. Hundreds of residents there spent Labor Day weekend expecting they would be booted out and fearing a convoy of Hells Angels vigilantes would converge on their neighborhood, as some conservatives called for on social media.
The bikers never came, and city management clarified after the long weekend that it was not in fact seeking an emergency order to close the complex. As it turned out, such a legal process doesn’t exist.
Coffman did not address the misinformation he posted — and has since removed — about imminent court action.
Meanwhile, information surfaced about a third blighted complex in Aurora owned by Baumgarten and CBZ — Whispering Pines on Helena Street. The Perkins Coie law firm sent an Aug. 9 letter to city administrators claiming TdA exerted a violent “stranglehold” on the complex dating back to 2023.
“The evidence we have reviewed indicates that gang members are engaging in flagrant trespass violations, assaults and battery, human trafficking and sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms possession, extortion, and other criminal activities, often targeting vulnerable Venezuelan and other immigrant populations,” wrote T. Markus Funk, a Perkins Cole partner and former U.S. Attorney representing the lender for the property.
Some of the incidents Funk detailed in his letter are consistent with arrests police have made of three suspected TdA members at the complex. They are:
Juan Carlos Mejia-Espana, arrested March 17 following a domestic dispute with a weapon
Larry Medina, arrested July 10 in connection with a July 2 felony menacing allegation. The victim reported Medina pointed a firearm and threatened to kill them, police said
And Yoendry Vilchez Medina-Jose, arrested on Aug. 5 on a warrant stemming from a Nov. 2023 assault
City officials have pointed out that the letters from lawyers representing interests of property owners are not vetted investigations.
“Much has been said about the report produced and sent to the city by Perkins Coie law firm,” city spokesperson Ryan Luby said in a Sept. 11 statement. “APD had been and still is investigating the concerns the report raised. Despite the property owners’ complaints about the city’s handling of the claims, they continue to be uncooperative in allowing the city and APD to actually investigate.”
City officials later said that an offer to place Aurora police officers in some or all of the subject apartment complexes for a limited time has been rejected by landlord officials.
3 identified in viral Aurora apartment video; police say gang ties unknown
The video that helped launch the Aurora Venezuelan controversy into the international media became news again last week.
Police have one man in custody, issued arrest warrants for two more suspects, and are searching for three other unidentified men in connection with last month’s viral video showing six armed men storming a northwest Aurora building and entering an apartment.
The surveillance footage was recorded by a resident the night of Aug. 18, seven minutes before police say 25-year-old Oswaldo Jose Dabion Araujo was killed by gunshot at the same complex, The Edge at Lowry, at Dallas Street and East 12th Avenue. Although the in-
vestigation is ongoing, investigators believe the armed men seen in the video are related to the shooting.
One of them, Naudi Lopez-Fernandez, 21, is in custody, and Aurora police are searching for two other suspects, Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 25, and Niefred Jose Serpa-Acosta, 20 — all of whom face charges of first-degree burglary and felony menacing. Police are trying to identify the three remaining armed men in the footage, who like Zambrano-Pachecoalso and Serpa-Acosta remain at large.
Officers found the scoped rifle seen in the video in an apartment unit neighboring the ones caught on camera.
In his first news conference since swearing in on Sept. 9, the Aurora Police Department’s new chief, Todd Chamberlain, said none of the suspects has been linked to a gang or organized crime group.
At least for the time being, that assertion counters claims in late August by Aurora Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman that the men are members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, otherwise known as TdA. Although Coffman since has backtracked on those claims, the false narrative that TdA members have overrun whole apartment complexes in Aurora has gone so viral that Donald Trump is using it as an anti-immigration talking point in his presidential campaign.
The new chief didn’t discount the possibility the suspects are TdA members, noting that soured diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Venezuela — and Venezuelan law enforcement’s refusal to share information about criminals or gang members from that country — make gang affiliation difficult for police to prove.
“The one thing that I think is positive with most gang members is that they do like to brag, and they’re very verbose, and I think that after a while you’ll start to see individuals start to identify or self-identity as ‘Yeah, I’m a TdA gang member,’ or ‘Yeah, I’m a whatever-gang-they’re-affiliated with.’ But it is going to be a process. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take time.”
Chamberlain was careful to note that, “We don’t want to misidentify any individual as a gang member.”
He said APD is being methodical at how it proceeds.
“You identify someone as a gang member that stays with them for the rest of their life. That is one (thing) I’m not going to do with this agency,” he said. “We are not going to do a knee-jerk reaction to this. We are going to be methodical, we are going to be precise and we are going to be evidence-based.”
Chamberlain emphasized that the police investigation focuses on the suspects’ alleged criminal behavior, not their immigration status. He made a point of noting that many Venezuelans don’t feel comfortable reporting crimes because they are undocumented.
“We want individuals that are being victimized, we want individuals that are being mistreated to step forward,” Chamberlain said. “We want to help and we will help.”
That said, he promised to use “every tool” and every chance to unify efforts with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies “to ensure that criminals are found and brought to justice.” Still, he noted that “we are not going to over-police the population based on their race or (ethnicity).”
Chamberlain debunked much-publicized comments made by Jurinsky and Coffman this summer suggesting that TdA and Venezuelan migrants more generally have taken over apartment complexes and overrun police:
“We are not by any means overwhelmed by that issue. We are not by any means overtaken by (Venezuelan) gangs, TDA or any other gang.”
The Edge at Lowry, along with two other Aurora apartment complexes — Aspen Grove and Whispering pines — are owned and managed by the same company, CBZ Management and have been the subject of multiple complaints about structural problems, flooding,
broken appliances, mold and bugs and vermin infestation. The city shut down Aspen Grove because of building and safety code violations, forcing hundreds of mostly Venezuelan residents to find new homes.
Chamberlain signed a nuisance complaint Sept. 20 for all three properties. In the meantime, city staff said the owner and management company have not been cooperative in repairing the complexes and making them more livable.
Democrats push back
Weeks of Democratic silence about what Republicans framed as TdA’s reign of terror in Aurora ended as August turned to September.
Two of the three liberals on the city’s 11-person, majority-conservative council slammed Jurinsky and Coffman for scaring tenants and triggering a flood of social media racism against Venezualens.
“We’re dealing with irresponsible folks who for political reasons want to make a frenzy about immigration in a city that has historically been welcoming of our immigrant population,” said Councilmember Alison Coombs, a progressive Democrat and longtime advocate for Aurora’s immigrant population. “Unfortunately we have parties who are unwilling to engage in good faith and in rational discourse.”
Councilmember Crystal Murillo echoed concerns that her colleagues were spreading untruths.
“We’re getting distracted by unconfirmed false narratives that play on people’s fears,” she said. “If people are spreading false information, there should be consequences. There are real impacts in the community when we use people’s identities as political pawns.”
Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’s office also chimed in, deriding Coffman and Jurinsky for manufacturing false news and urging them to refrain from stoking public fears.
“He really hopes that the city council members in charge stop trashing their own city when they are supposed to keep it safe,” Polis’ spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement to the Sentinel.
Weiman noted that violent crime in Aurora — and all of metro Denver — went down between 2022-2023, and is expected to have made further declines by the end of 2024, saying, “the recent misinformation campaign threatens actual criminal investigations and could hurt the climate for small businesses in Aurora.”
Polis’ criticisms came the day Coffman appeared on national Fox News reiterating Jurinsky’s alarms about TdA. They prompted Coffman to tone down his message hours later on NEXT on 9News, calling descriptions of the gang problem “an incredible exaggeration.”
For his part, U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, whose congressional district includes Aurora, countered the narrative pushed by John Fabbricatore, his Republican challenger, by saying “There is no gang takeover of Aurora, Colorado” and “no evidence of gang takeovers” of apartment complexes in the city. He criticized his opponent, as well as Coffman and Jurinsky, for “demonizing immigrants and refugees in a way that…leads to racist, bigoted, hurtful rhetoric.”
“What’s relevant here is that you have folks who have lived in squalid conditions for many years, and that we have a huge affordable housing crisis in Aurora. We have immigrants and refugees who are trying to find security and peace and start a new life. And you have politicians, in this case, who are misrepresenting and distorting the facts for political purposes…,” Crow said.
By far the most impassioned response came from Venezuelan migrants themselves, who as the controversy heated up worried their kids would be scapegoated at school and their employers in house-cleaning, restaurants, landscaping and construction jobs would fire them. About 50 residents of The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines held a news conference on Sept. 3 to say that, contrary to claims by
›› See STORM, 19
ON THE RISE
City football teams put difficult starts to season behind them in Week
BY COURTNEY OAKES Sports Editor
The Eaglecrest football team needed just five yards to secure Homecoming glory Sept. 19, but it got much more from Joe Steiner.
The senior quarterback brought his team to the line of scrimmage facing a 3rd-and-5 in a tight tussle inside the final two minutes with Denver East at jam-packed Legacy Stadium and ripped off a 74 yard touchdown run to seal a 17-7 victory.
Sophomore Trey Patton gave the Raptors a lead in the fourth quarter with his 29-yard field goal that was the difference between the teams until Steiner found the end zone for a second time to complete a night in which he rushed for 191 yards for coach Jesse German’s team, which improved to 3-1 on the season.
Denver East (3-1) averaged 44.3 points per game coming into the contest, but Eaglecrest held it to just one touchdown, which came on a penalty-aided drive to end the third quarter.
The teams played a virtual tug-of-war in the middle of the field in a scoreless first half, but the Raptors got the first possession of the second half and drove it all the way down the field on the strength of a variety of runs by Steiner. The drive ended in the end zone on a 1-yard keeper. Denver East responded with its own march that included a big pass interference penalty that extended the drive in the red zone.
On the other side of the flip to the fourth quarter, Steiner again drove Eaglecrest down the field as he and senior Josh Wiley kept it almost exclusively on the ground. Wiley got stopped just shy of the goal line on fourth down, however, which gave the ball back to the Angels on a turnover on downs. The Raptors came up with a quick stop, got the ball back and went ahead on Patton’s field goal.
Steiner’s touchdown run put a capper on his big night, which continued a theme for the season.
As a whole, Week 4 was the best week so far for Aurora prep football teams, which were 6-5 collectively.
Vista PEAK Prep joined Eaglecrest for city-high honors with its third win, which came Sept. 20 at Denver’s All-City Stadium. Coach Mike Campbell’s Bison got a massive ground day by junior Tyrone Smiley, who racked up 264 yards rushing and two touchdowns and he also caught one of the three touchdown passes from senior quarterback Carson Campbell. Senior Larry Mosely and junior Isaiah Watson also scored.
Rangeview, which prevailed in a local matchup against Smoky Hill Sept. 20 at Aurora Public Schools Stadium. Coach Chris Dixon’s Raiders got two defensive touchdowns in the opening half — one on a fumble return by senior Brandon Jones and another on senior Mario Hayes Jr.’s pick-six — to go with two rushing touchdowns from junior Tyson Tuck in a 28-9 victory. Coach Brandon Alconcel’s Buffaloes (0-4) played its most inspired game of the year and got into the end zone for the first time on a rush from senior Trent Littlejohn as well as a safety forced by senior Lee Scott.
After three straight one-score losses, Grandview (1-3) earned its first victory in style with a 42-17 victory over Rock Canyon Sept. 20 at EchoPark Stadium that started with a 21-point opening quarter. Coach Tom Doherty’s Wolves got two rushing touchdowns apiece from senior Caleb Llamas and junior Chris Blanks (who racked up 146 yards), while junior Blitz McCarty threw two touchdown passes to senior Kyler Vaughn, who accounted for 112 of McCarty’s 164 yards through the air.
Also a winner for the first time was Regis Jesuit, which went on the road Sept. 19 and rolled to a 35-14 victory over Fossil Ridge. Coach Danny Filleman’s Raiders (1-3) got two touchdown passes and 247 yards through the air from freshman quarterback Luke Rubley — who found senior Garrett Reece for both scores — while senior Joe Pron rushed for two touchdowns. Regis Jesuit also scored defensively when senior Jojo Hernandez returned an interception to the end zone.
Cherokee Trail piled up a season-high in points scored and allowed a season-low on its way to a 37-6 victory over Rocky Mountain on Sept. 20 at Legacy Stadium. Senior quarterback Tyson Smith threw touchdown passes to seniors Brandon McCullough and Cade Brook and senior Noah Collins rushed for two scores for the Cougars.
Aurora Central played its Homecoming contest Sept. 19 at APS Stadium and put on a second-half rally before falling to Greeley Central 20-13. Coach Chris Kelly’s Trojans (1-3) got 289 yards of total offense from sophomore quarterback Markell Perkins, who rushed for a touchdown and also threw a scoring pass to Darian Fitzgerald.
Gateway had a 12-0 lead in its Sept. 20 visit to Adams City, but the hosts rallied in the second half to edge the Olys 13-12. Coach Rashad Mason’s Gateway team got touchdown passes from sophomore quarterback Westin Rayburn to sophomore Jeramiah Stark and freshman Jake Brock.
Overland ran into a hot Arvada West team in a Sept. 20 visit to the North Area Athletic Complex and fell to 1-3 with a 42-0 loss to the 4-1 Wildcats. Coach Tony Lindsay Sr.’s Trailblazers got 54 yards rushing from senior Jarrius Ward, but were shut out for the first time on the season. Hinkley dropped a 55-0 visit to Timnath Sept. 20, as coach Dennis York’s team fell to 0-3.
WEEK PAST
The week past in Aurora prep sports
SATURDAY, SEPT. 21: The Regis Jesuit boys soccer team suffered its first loss of the season, as it fell to Rockhurst 3-2 at the Jesuit Classic in Wisconsin. Jack De Simone and Charles Sharp had teh Raiders’ goals. ...Kamaya Soniea-Harris tossed seven innings of two-hit ball and stuck out 10, while Brooklyn Heil knocked in three runs for the Grandview softball team in a 6-1 win over Legacy. ...The Vista PEAK Prep softball team scored in double digits in two innings in a 23-10 home win over Mullen that featured home runs for Nia Mathis (6 RBI) and Jaya Gray, plus 4 RBI for Nayely Duran Michaela Halton pitched a complete game and had three hits, as did Kourtnie Batcho (who had 4 RBI) as the Overland softball team edged Thornton 13-12. Braeden Focht of the Regis Jesuit boys cross country team ran a time of 16 minutes, 00.7 seconds, to win the individual championship of the Northfield Nighthawks Invitational, while his Raiders were third as a team. Zoe Small’s 20th place individual finish led the Regis Jesuit to sixth place in the girls race. ... Led by the runner-up finish of Dylan Smith, the Cherokee Trail boys cross country team claimed the championship of the Roadrunners Invitational at Wash Park. Eaglecrest led local teams in the girsl race in fifth place as a team with Jenna Winn coming in ninth individually. ...The Aurora Central girls flag football team rallied to defeat Vista PEAK Prep 20-18 to finish off a 1-1 day. The Trojans lost 6-0 to Denver North, which also defeated the host Bison 12-6. Oriah Owens scored a touchdown in both games for Vista PEAK Prep. ...The Grandview girls flag football team topped Cherokee Trail 37-6 in Centennial League play. ...The Eaglecrest girls flag football team earned a 19-0 win over Smoky Hill in a league contest. ...The Regis Jesuit boys tennis team won the championship of the Ralston Valley Full Send Invitational with 69 points. Blake Wright (No. 2 singles), Sebastian Wright (No. 3 singles), KC Eckenhausen and Adam Rydel (No. 2 doubles) and the No. 4 doubles team of Spencer Buege and Aiden Prananta won their respective brackets. ...The Overland gymnastics team earned its highest score of the season of 177.550 points on its home mats to finish second behind Mountain Range at the Overland Invitational.
Ainsley Renner finished as the all-around runner-up and she also won the vault, while Maia Howell was the runner-up in the floor exercise. ...FRIDAY, SEPT. 20: Emma Rice threw a complete game with 11 strikeouts and aldo had three hits and drove in two runs as the Cherokee Trail softball team knocked off top-ranked Valor Christian 11-4. Kennedy Brian and Tayah Burton also had three hits and Icela Ciocarlan homered for the Cougars. ...The Smoky Hill field hockey team topped Grandview 2-0 in a local matchup. ...THURSDAY, SEPT. 19: The Grandview girls volleyball team earned a 25-18, 25-18, 20-25, 25-22 victory over Mullen that gave coach Rob Graham his 400th career victory. Sajal Glunz piled up 22 kills, while Savannah Adams added 18 and Julia Ulitzky racked up 41 assists. ...Teyla Holloway was credited with 16 service aces as well as 12 assists, while Shylin Collins had five kills for the Rangeview girls volleyball team in a 25-3, 25-6, 25-6 win over Montbello. ...Ella Notheisen racked up 10 kills, while Kassie Cooley added nine for the Cherokee Trail girls volleyball team in its 25-18, 25-19, 25-11 win over Smoky Hill. ...The Overland boys soccer team took a goal lead after one half against Vista PEAK Prep on a goal by Adonis Mitchell, but the game finished in a 1-1 tie after Angel Flores scored for the Bison. ...The Cherokee Trail softball team got four RBI from Lily Buttshaw and three hits and three stolen bases from Tayah Burton in a 13-1 win over Cherry Creek. ...Braelyn Brakeman homered, Monroe Donaldson drove in two runs and Kamaya SoneiaHarris pitched four scoreless innings of relief to get the win as the Grandview softball team defeated Arapahoe 7-5. ...The
Overland softball team downed Kennedy 16-5 with help of three extra base hits and four RBI from Michaela Halton, who earned the win. ...Ailey Henry and Ava Matheny (who earned the pitching win) each went 3-for-3 and joined Nikiah Light with 3 RBI as the Smoky Hill softball team topped Mullen 17-6. Lauren Reed pitched a four-hitter over six innings, while Kaydence Maes and Amara Herrera homered for the Vista PEAK Prep softball team in an 11-1 win over Denver North. Stephanie Gomez homered and struck out nine to earn the win, while Kaylah Leach drove in five runs for the Aurora Central softball team in a 20-9 win over Jefferson. ...Ayla Ramirez and Mia Stanton threw touchdown passes in the opening half for the Rangeview girls flag football team and Nashee’Lynn Brown rushed for one in the second half of a 19-13 win over Smoky Hill. The Buffaloes got touchdowns from Sailor Roth and Desiree Gee. ...The Grandview and Regis Jesuit boys tennis teams earned 7-0 sweeps of Overland and Rock Canyon, respectively. ...The Regis Jesuit field hockey team played previously unbeaten Colorado Academy to a 0-0 draw.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 18: A touchdown pass from Brooke Sullivan to Kenzie Dodd stood up for the Grandview girls flag football team in a 7-0 win over Eaglecrest at Legacy Stadium. ...The Grandview boys tennis team got a singles sweep from Justin Son (No. 1), Kaahan Wani (No. 2) and Krish Wani (No. 3) plus two doubles wins in a 5-2 victory over Chaparral.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 17: The Cherokee Trail girls volleyball team
FAR LEFT: Eaglecres senior quarterback Joe Steiner (12) breaks into the open field on his way to a 74-yard touchdown in the Raptors’ 17-7 win over Denver East Sept. 19 at Legacy Stadium. ABOVE CENTER: Vista PEAK Prep’s Tyrone Smiley finds running room on his way to a touchdown in the Bison’s 35-20 win over Denver South Sept. 20. ABOVE
RIGHT TOP: Cherokee Trail’s Dylan Smith finished second in the boys race at the Roadrunners Invitational Sept. 21. ABOVE RIGHT
BOTTOM: Smoky Hill’s Elliott Kaganer (11) vies with an Air Academy defender for a loose ball in the Buffaloes’ loss Sept. 17. LEFT: Ainsley Renner finished as the all-around runner-up and helped the Overland gymnastics team to second at the Overland Invitational Sept. 21. BOTTOM LEFT: Vista PEAK Prep’s Amara Herrera (5) cracks a triple in the Bison’s 26-6 softball win at Rangeview Sept. 18. BOTTOM RIGHT: Rangeview’s Mia Stanton (8) hauls in a two-point conversion in the Raiders’ 19-13 win over Smoky Hill Sept 20.. (Photos by Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)
got 12 kills from Ella Notheisen, eight apiece from Kassie Cooley and Bella Sieve and 23 assists from Avery Krause in a 25-14, 25-7, 25-11 sweep of Overland. ...The Grandview girls volleyball team earned a 25-10, 24-26, 25-12, 25-15 road win at Smoky Hill Jack De Simone scored four goals, while Charles Sharp had another with two assists as the Regis Jesuit boys soccer team topped ThunderRidge 5-1. ... Ernest Darko, Joseph Miranda and Hammam Sewsi had goals for the Overland boys soccer team in a 3-1 win over Westminster. ... Matthew Miller, Aiden Petty and Isaac Wells put balls into the net for the Cherokee Trail boys soccer team in its 4-0 road win over Castle View. ...The Rangeview boys soccer team scored in each half for a 2-1 win over Loveland. ...Leah Graves pitched three hitless innings and the Grandview softball team piled up 14 hits in a 20-0 win over Mullen. Maddie Donaldson homered twice and drove in five runs, Madison Jaramillo and Brooklyn Heil also went deep and Sasha Kennedy had three doubles and four RBI. ...The Vista PEAK Prep softball team had two 10-run rallies in a 26-6 win at Rangeview behind 5 RBI from Brianna Fierro and three apiece for Nayely Duran, Kaydence Maes, Nia Mathis and Lauren Reed. ...Two home runs and six RBI from Michaela Halton plus three hits apiece for Emma Davis, Anaiah Patterson and Kourtnie Batcho helped the Overland softball team to a 26-8 win over Denver West. ...The Regis Jesuit field hockey team suffered its first loss with a 3-0 defeat to Cherry Creek. ...The Regis Jesuit boys tennis team swept past Mountain Vista 7-0 in Continenta League play. ...Casey Nesbitt of the Vista PEAK Prep boys golf team shot 85 to lead the way among locals at the CIty League tournament at Aurora Hills G.C., which saw the Bison finish seventh and Rangeview eighth. MONDAY, SEPT. 16: The Grandview boys soccer team scored in the second half and won 1-0 at Valor Christian. ...A 10-strikeout performance for Alex Tavlarides on the mound helped the Regis Jesuit softball team to a 15-8 win over ThunderRidge. Anna Najmulski knocked in three runs for the Raiders, while Abi Puschaver and Alexis Colvin brought in a pair each. ...Elyse Bailey scored a goal in the first half and Riley Leeser made it stand up with two saves as the Smoky Hill field hockey team beat Dakota Ridge 1-0.. ...Setou Sy and Maria Gutierrez Benitez rushed for touchdowns for the Aurora West College Prep Academy girls flag football team in a 13-12 win over Bruice Randolph. ...Cole Dossey of Gateway boys golf team won the Colorado League individual title and the Olys took the team crown from the Colorado League major at Legacy Ridge G.C. ...The Regis Jesuit boys golf team secured the Continental League championship with its first place finish at the league tournament at Lone Tree G.C. Sam Walker was the individual medalist with a 3-under-par 69, while Ben Sander shot 73 to tie for seventh.
Civics lesson
DO YOU KNOW THE 3 BRANCHES OF US GOVERNMENT? MANY DON’T, LEADING TO A PUSH FOR CIVICS EDUCATION
BY ALLEN G. BREED AND TIM SULLIVAN, AP National Writers
On the first day of his American National Government class, Prof. Kevin Dopf asks how many of his students are United States citizens. Every hand shoots up.
“So, how did all you people become citizens?” he asks. “Did you pass a test?”
“No,” one young woman says tentatively. “We were born here.”
It’s a good thing. Based on his years of making his students at the University of South Carolina Beaufort take the test given to immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship, most would be rejected.
“Thirty, 35% of the students will pass it,” says Dopf, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former West Point instructor. “The rest of them are clueless. I mean, they’re just clueless.”
Most states require some sort of high school civics instruction. But with a recent survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center showing that about a third of American adults can’t name the three branches of the federal government, many think we should be aiming higher.
Over the past few years, a small but growing number of states have begun requiring students at publicly funded colleges to complete a civics requirement. That comes as polling indicates civics education is wildly popular across the political spectrum.
In Colorado, civics requirements are expanded to include most “social studies” topics, not just civil government.
Civics — the study of citizens’ rights and responsibilities — fosters a sense of unity, advocates say, and an ability to deal with disagreement. It empowers citizens, and many people believe it could help heal America’s divides. Having it in higher education means they can look at issue in more sophisticated ways, perhaps weaving it into other classes.
“I feel we are in the business for making a case for America,” said Louise Dube, head of iCivics, which promotes civics education.
Could YOU pass a citizenship test?
Immigrants seeking to become United States citizens have to show a working knowledge of the nation’s history and how the federal government functions. And they don’t get multiple choices. Could you pass even a dumbed-down citizenship test? Let’s find out!
1. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
a. July 4, 1775
b. Christmas, 1782
c. July 4, 1776
d. Oct. 19, 1781
2. What do the stripes on the U.S. flag stand for?
a. They hearken back to the British flag
b. The 13 original colonies
c. The blood shed in the American Revolution
d. No one knows for sure
3. How many amendments make up the Bill of Rights?
a. Five
b. Twenty
c. Thirteen
d. Ten
4. Name one right guaranteed by the First Amendment.
a. The right to bear arms
b. Freedom of assembly
c. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
d. The right to privacy
5. How many members are there in the House of Representatives?
a. 435
b. 438
c. 450
d. It fluctuates
6. Which of these is NOT a requirement to be president of the United States?
a. Must be a natural-born citizen
b. Must be at least 35 years old
c. Must have lived at least 14 years in the U.S.
d. Must own property in the U.S.
7. How long do Senators serve?
a. Four years
b. Two years
c. Eight years
d. Six years
8. How many full terms can a president serve?
a. Two
b. Unlimited
c. Three
d. Four
9. Which branch of the federal government controls spending?
a. Executive
b. Legislative
c. Judiciary
d. The Internal Revenue Service
10. What are the first words of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution?
a. “We hold these truths to be self-evident ...”
b. “Four score and seven years ago ...”
c. “We the people ...”
d. “When in the course of human events ...”
Answers
1. c: The printed copies distributed to state delegations and others originally bore just two signatures: those of Congress President John Hancock and Secretary Charles Thomson. The parchment copy most Americans know and revere wasn’t engrossed until the following month, and some delegates never signed it.
2. b: The seven red stripes represent valor and “hardiness”; the six white stripes stand for purity and innocence.
3. d: James Madison, often called the “Father
of the Constitution,” initially opposed having an addendum to the document. But some states held off ratification until a “bill of rights” was added.
4. b: Madison’s initial draft of the First Amendment did not include freedom of worship. It read: “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”
5. a: That number was first adopted in 1911. The House temporarily added two more seats following the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii as states in 1959.
6. d: Although George Washington was born in Virginia, the first president could have been foreign-born, so long as he was a U.S. citizen “at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution ...” Martin van Buren was the first president born after the United States broke away from Britain.
7. d: The framers hoped that staggered terms would promote stability and prevent senators from combining for “sinister purposes.”
8. a: Before 1951 and the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, presidents could theoretically serve unlimited terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected four times but died in office, is the only chief executive to have served more than two terms.
9. b: Congress controls taxing and establishes an annual budget.
10. c: Those three words are the beginning of the preamble. That differs from the Articles of Confederation, adopted in November 1777, which focused on the sovereignty of the states.
AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin
Jurinsky and Coffman, none of them had been extorted by gang members. Tenants led camera crews on tours of their water-damaged apartments, some without glass on their windows, working appliances or running water. One resident held up traps with mice, both dead and alive, stuck to them as proof of his building’s squalid conditions.
The tenants said the real danger is not from
they also see danger in city politicians spreading misinformation and threatening their home.
“We’re afraid of your mayor and of the cockroaches and rats in our apartments, not of gangs,” Gladis Tovav, an Edge at Lowry resident, said through a translator.
As angry as they are about the conditions in their apartment complexes, tenants are even angrier at Jurinsky’s assertions that “They aren’t residents, they’re occupants,” and that
ments and receipts for rent payments that some say they scrape together by working 80 or more hours a week.
One of them, Francy Rodriguez, disputed Jurinsky through a translator: “A true councilwoman would come speak with us in person, listen to us, and treat us like humans, not animals.”
Gang takeover stories take on lives of their own
Dramamine prevents it 12) High-pitched woodwind 13) Baseball backstops 18) Amerada_ (bygone petroleum company)
22) He fought Frazier three times 23) '80s fashions, now 24) How most fans cheer 25) Material for some bikes
26) Batty, in Spain
Locally, the story shifted in early September when Coffman made a public turn-about.
After meeting with residents of The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines complexes, he posted on Facebook Sept. 6 to say he had come to the conclusion “that a Venezuelan gang is not in control of either of these two apartment complexes.”
The false narrative, however, about gang takeovers in the city had taken such hold among conservatives in Aurora and across the nation, drawing a flood of anti-Venezuelan and anti-immigrant tirades from politicians and others.
A call-in speaker at the Sept. 9 City Council used the controversy to spew his admittedly white-supremacist hate at Venezuelans, whom he called “sh**skinned people.”
28) "There's no music in_ " Ruskin
29) Former Yugoslavian president 3] ) Samoan money
33) It might come with a few pointers 34) Jittery
36) Acme
37) Huck Finn's boat
41) Type of resistance
43) Paddle kin
44) Ashtabula's lake
45) Window-shade part
46) Like Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali
47) South Pacific island nation
48) Up-and-_
50) Raised racehorses
51) Rush furiously, as a river
54) Feel pain, perhaps
55) Use the microwave
56) Tokyo, formerly
57) Fix, as a clock
NOTICE
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S.
“These people, none of these people belong in our country,” he said, blaming the city council for allowing migrants into the city, accusing its members of taking “Jewish money,” and calling Polis “that fa**** kike governor.”
“What happens when we stand up against these people? It’s not going to be pretty, I’m gonna tell you that. What are you gonna do then? You’re gonna put us in jail, huh?” he asked the council. “The founding stock of this country, the people that came and founded this country, we’re the ones that are gonna get thrown in gulags and all the sh**skins get all, everything, right? You guys got a rude awakening coming, and it’s coming fast. As you can see, society is collapsing, and you’re all complicit. And we will remember all of your faces. You’re all f*****.”
MiDian Holmes, an activist organizing recent demonstrations at City
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
Hall, turned to news cameras to speak directly to Chief Todd Chamberlain, who hours earlier replaced interim Chief Heather Morris by swearing in as Aurora’s seventh police chief in five years.
“I hope you understand and realize what you have stepped into,” Holmes said. “You are now the permanent police chief behind leaders that are inciting individuals that have given clear warning tonight of what they plan to do.”
Nationally, the story had grown a life of its own. Trump cited Aurora twice in his Sept. 9 presidential debate with Kamala Harris as a way to stir up fear of undocumented immigrants and loathing of current U.S. policy on the southern border.
“We have millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump said. “You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently. …And they’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality.”
Google data showed online search interest in Aurora reached a 12-year high during the debate, Denver ABC affiliate KMGH-TV Channel 7 reported. In the course of one 90-minute debate, a city that has spent years and millions of dollars trying to define itself beyond its 2012 theater shooting and long string of much-publicized police excessive force cases became Springfield, Ohio, without the alleged pet-eating.
Aurora officials tried the next day to push back against Trump’s assertions.
Gangs have not “taken over the city,” according to a statement released Sept. 11. “The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true.”
The statement didn’t mention that two of the council members, Jurinsky and Coffman, whom the administrators work for, and who signed the joint statement with police and city staffers, are responsible for having seeded those claims.
Trump, meanwhile, kept pushing the story forward, saying on Sept. 13 that, if elected, he would order mass deportations of undocumented immigrants starting in Springfield and Aurora. He also said he may make campaign stops in both cities this election season.
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S. Case No. 2024PR30940
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S.
Case No. 2024PR30971
Estate of Marion Rita Gerome, Deceased.
All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Arapahoe County, Colorado, on or before January 27, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred. Amy E. Matteson Personal Representative 2231 S. Moline Court Aurora, CO 80014
Estate of Eddie Laverne Henry aka Eddy Laverne Henry, Deceased.
All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Arapahoe County, Colorado, on or before January 18, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred.
Attorney for Personal Representative
Ben Lutter Atty Reg #: 55251 Gant Law, LLC 8213 W. 20th St., Ste. G Greeley, CO 80634 Phone: 970-368-3684
Jennifer E. Jespersen, Esq. Atty Reg #: 36295 Law Office of Jennifer E. Jespersen 8039 South Oneida Court Centennial, Colorado 80112 Phone: 720-841-7771
First Publication: September 19, 2024
Final Publication: October 3, 2024
First Publication: September 26, 2024
Sentinel
Final Publication: October 10, 2024
Sentinel
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S.
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S. Case No. 2024PR30943
Case No. 2024PR30995
Estate of Mavis Sampson, Deceased.
Estate of Thelma Durr Kreeger aka Thelma D. Kreeger aka Thelma Kreeger, Deceased.
All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the Denver Probate Court of the City and County of Denver, Colorado, on or before January 15, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred.
All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Arapahoe County, Colorado, on or before January 20, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred. Jeffery Cole Kreeger
James Vance
Personal Representative 8221 Bayard St. Philadelphia, PA 19150
Personal Representative 24 Park Place, Apt. 6H Hartford, CT 06106
Attorney for Personal Representative
Attorney for Personal Representative
Frank M. Parker
Atty Reg #: 26204
David A. Imbler Esq. Atty. Reg. #: 52038 Of Counsel, Spaeth & Doyle, LLP 501 S. Cherry St., Suite 700 Glendale, CO 80246
NORIYUKI & PARKER, P.C. PO Box 949 Granby, CO 80446
Phone: 970-887-2121
Phone: 303-385-8058
First Publication: September 19, 2024
First Publication: September 12, 2024
Final Publication: October 3, 2024
Final Publication: September 26, 2024 Sentinel
Sentinel
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S. Case No. 2024PR30971
Case No. 2024PR354
Estate of Marion Rita Gerome, Deceased.
Estate of Esther Ada O’Kane aka Esther A. O’Kane aka Esther O’Kane, Deceased. All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Adams County, Colorado, on or before January 19, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred. Terri L. Gunther Personal Representative 2500 S. Tucson Way Aurora, CO 80014 First Publication: September 19, 2024 Final Publication: October 3, 2024
All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Arapahoe County, Colorado, on or before January 27, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred. Amy E. Matteson
Personal Representative 2231 S. Moline Court Aurora,
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
10, 2024
Sentinel
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801. C.R.S. Case No. 2024PR420
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
ent them to the co-personal representatives or to the District Court of Adams County, Colorado on or before February 1, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred. JULIE ANN KILGORE RANDALL KEVIN KILGORE Co-Personal Representatives c/o Felice F. Huntley West Huntley Gregory PC P.O. Box 588 Breckenridge, CO 80424 Phone: 970-453-2901
First Publication: September 26, 2024 Final Publication: October 10, 2024 Sentinel PUBLIC NOTICE OF PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME OF A MINOR ARAPAHOE COUNTY COURT, COLORADO Case No. 2024CV144
PUBLIC NOTICE is given that a Petition was filed for a Change of Name of a Minor has been filed with the Arapahoe County Court.
PURSUANT TO §15-12-801, C.R.S. Case No. 2024PR30995
Estate of Mavis Sampson, Deceased.
Estate of Frank Vincent Palamara, Deceased. All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Arapahoe County, Colorado, on or before January 26, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred. Amy Palamara Nesbitt Personal Representative 6515 Many Moon Drive Colorado Springs, CO 80923
All persons having claims against the above-named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the Denver Probate Court of the City and County of Denver, Colorado, on or before January 15, 2025, or the claims may be forever barred.
James Vance Personal Representative 8221 Bayard St. Philadelphia, PA 19150
The Petition entered that the name of ANH KHOA TRAN be changed to KEVIN KHOA TRAN. /s/ Judge
First Publication: September 19, 2024 Final Publication: October 3, 2024 Sentinel
NOTICE TO CREDITORS BY PUBLICATION
Attorney for Personal Representative
PURSUANT TO § 15-12-801, C.R.S. Case No. 2024PR30646
Estate of WILLIAM RAY KILGORE, aka WILLIAM R. KILGORE aka WILLIAM KILGORE aka RAY KILGORE, Deceased. All persons having claims against the
David A. Imbler Esq. Atty. Reg. #: 52038 Of Counsel, Spaeth & Doyle, LLP 501 S. Cherry St., Suite 700 Glendale, CO 80246 Phone: 303-385-8058 First Publication: September 12, 2024
›› STORM, from 9
