Letters: Venezuelan gang concerns in Aurora shouldn’t be dismissed

Dismissing the gang concerns in Aurora

Re: “Is a violent gang of illegal immigrants taking over Aurora?” Aug. 31 editorial

It is not the vast majority of Venezuelan immigrants, papered or not, who are causing concern. It is, however, the small minority of Venezuelan immigrants who are gang members who are cause for great concern!

Do I fear every Venezuelan immigrant? Of course not. This is not a racial or ethnic issue. This is, however, an all too real gang issue. This gang, which appears to be raising havoc in Aurora, is a problem. Defending Venezuelan immigrants as a group is a mere diversion from the real problem. You should not divert attention from this problem by shifting it into a fake ethnic issue or into a fake anti-Venezuelan issue. No intelligent person is concluding that “all Venezuelan immigrants, papered or not, are dangerous gang members.” Intelligent people are saying, “A Venezuelan gang is a cause of great concern.”

We would be fools to ignore the fact that this gang of domestic terrorists is Venezuelan by ethnicity or heritage because saying that would be politically incorrect. That is government propaganda and sheer nonsense just as it is sheer nonsense to dismiss those who are legitimately worried about the dangers posed by this gang because the gang is Venezuelan in origin.

Reporting the facts is not measured by political correctness except in this editorial piece. Facts are facts, even when they are politically inconvenient. Revisionist news is not news. It is nonsense that has no place even as an opinion piece.

Leonard Frieling, Lafayette

I’ve spent years organizing, protesting, canvassing, and managing political campaigns in Aurora. I’m not new to the whole “painting whole cities as violent and gang-ridden to justify and spread racist hate against a particular group of people” thing.

Here’s the thing: These racist lies are always stoked by the same municipal lawmakers who have systematically deprived certain communities of the resources they need to thrive. They criminalize the inevitable consequences of the poverty they perpetuate. They refuse to hold cops accountable for hate crimes or homicides, or landlords accountable for unlivable conditions. In Aurora, they somehow manage to do this while successfully blaming Democrats for the results. In a city with a longtime Republican mayor and longtime Republican council majority, somehow nothing is actually their fault.

There were reports of a candidate who almost won a city council seat by knocking on Democratic voters’ doors and telling them he was a Democrat. Many voters realized the lie in time.

Councilmember Ruben Medina will be up for re-election in Ward 3 next fall, and once again, Republicans will spend a lot of money lying to voters in an effort to defeat him.

Lying is their constant. What you’re seeing right now is not concern for our residents; it’s preparation for the next election cycle, when City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky will pretend she didn’t just spend four years voting down Democrat-led measures to hold the landlords of this building accountable.

Brittney Buckley, Centennial

To paraphrase you folks: “Not a problem, nothing to do with race or illegal immigration, happens all the time.” To which I say “bunk.” I guess it has to be at your front door before it’s a problem.