(The Center Square) – Aurora police arrested several suspected gang members on Tuesday after an alleged home invasion and kidnapping at an apartment complex that’s become notorious for gang crime.
A male and female resident of The Edge at Lowry Apartments were attacked by 13 to 15 individuals, taken to another apartment against their will, and beaten, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said at a news conference Tuesday. The victims were let go and later contacted police.
Chamberlain said he could “guarantee” the attack was gang related “without question,” but stopped short of confirming the gang was Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that’s established itself in several cities across the U.S.
“There is a high assumption that they may be affiliated or affiliated with the TdA gang,” Chamberlain said. “But again, I am not going to say 100% positively till that is validated and verified.”
As of Tuesday evening, 19 suspects have been arrested in connection to the incident. The department has not yet confirmed gang affiliations as of early Wednesday afternoon, a spokesman told The Center Square.
Chamberlain said his department is working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations and ICE to help identify the individuals taken into custody.
Chamberlain praised the victims, who are also Venezuelan immigrants, for their courage to come forward and report the attack.
“All the individuals involved in this are most likely Venezuelan,” Chamberlain said. “Most of them are without question, or most likely, we believe at this point, undocumented or immigrants to the city of Aurora.”
“These individuals, like many gangs, and many individuals involved in this type of activity, they victimize their own race and their own ethnicity, and the reason they do that is because they are easy victims because they know because of their [immigration] status they will not come forward to the police,” he said. “They know that they can mistreat them.”
Tom Homan, who’s tapped to be the Trump administration’s border czar, on Tuesday told Fox News that Aurora police should hand over the suspects to ICE.
“Let’s hope [Chamberlain] walks the walk and hands these people to ICE when he’s done with them, because we can remove them not only from the community but from the country,” Homan told Fox News. “And if law enforcement officers don’t help us do that, we’re certainly going to do that starting January 21st.”
The Edge at Lowry Apartments drew national headlines over the summer after video showed armed individuals entering an apartment in the complex.