Aurora police, Colorado agencies create gang violence task force

AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — The Aurora Police Department announced Monday that it is joining forces with the Colorado State Patrol and Colorado Bureau of Investigation to create a special task force to address the city’s concerns about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Aurora police say the task force’s main goal will be to assist agencies around the area by maximizing resources and sharing intelligence in ongoing investigations.

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Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said this task force has been discussed and even put into practice for a time already. He said one of their biggest efforts now is to engage with and learn from the community.

“We’re also aggressively, you know, having presence in these pockets where there’s concentrations of Venezuelan migrants, to be able to try to ourselves, or at least our law enforcement personnel at the local, state and federal levels, to identify who these bad actors are and get them off the street,” Coffman said.

Coffman and Aurora police both said they cannot say too much about what the new task force will be doing so that any investigations will not be compromised.

Coffman did say, however, that he believes allocating more resources to this issue is necessary, and he wants residents to know it is something both he and police are taking seriously.

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