Officials in Aurora have begun to acknowledge the presence of Venezuelan gang activity in their Colorado city after the release of a terrifying surveillance video.

For Cindy Romero, living at 12th Avenue and Dallas Street has become a daily struggle against escalating violence and neglect. Life deteriorated into a nightmarish ordeal, marked by frequent encounters with crime and what she calls a lack of support from the city and police.

She first noticed a gradual increase in crime in her part of the Denver metro area about a year-and-a-half ago. It got worse over the last three months.

“We were constantly forced to take measures to protect ourselves,” Romero said. “I installed more locks, bought additional cameras, and parked further away from the building. Despite all these efforts, the situation kept escalating. We felt like we were being tortured.”

She reported seeing people move automatic weapons and engage in shootouts.

“I’ve seen handguns, rifles with scopes, and other firearms. It got so bad that bullets even went through my friend’s apartment and hit my car,” Romero said.

Despite frequent calls to 911, the police response was nearly nonexistent.

“The police would call me and say they weren’t coming unless it was a severe crime,” Romero said. “When I called the police to report a shooting, one officer asked if I had considered moving. If I could have afforded to leave, I would have.”

Romero installed multiple cameras that captured violent activity over weeks. Doorbell video shows a group of armed men forcing their way into her neighbor’s home. Another night, her camera outside captured two men approaching a vehicle with guns drawn.

Romero criticized city officials for their failure to address the problem.

“You are elected to protect your constituents. You fundraise off your promises, yet you left us to die,” she said.

After a shootout on Aug. 18 Romero was driven to desperation. And this week, her pleas for help were finally answered. By Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky.

“Jurinsky was the only one who really took an interest in our safety and worked to find solutions. It meant a lot to have someone genuinely concerned,” Romero said.

Jurinsky helped her move out and find other housing.

“I went in myself to help people move out. There was a large police presence, and at one point, a gentleman charged up the stairs after me,” Jurinsky said. “It was an eerie feeling. Even as I was helping people move out, others were moving in right in front of me.”

Jurinsky first became aware of the escalating gang activity shortly after a large gathering in Aurora related to the Venezuelan election.

“People were saying that individuals were patrolling their properties with guns and walking through their buildings. They called the police repeatedly, but the response was lacking,” Jurinsky said.

 According to her, police leadership had instructed officers that a minimum of three to four officers were needed to respond to such situations. If those numbers weren’t available, officers were told not to respond.

The council member expressed frustration about being one of the few voices raising awareness about the issue.

She says politics is being played with people’s lives.

“There’s human suffering on the other side of some of these doors and these apartment complexes, but there’s a big election coming up, and nobody wants to talk about this. Because if they start talking about this, someone has to admit there’s a problem somewhere,” she said.

On Wednesday, Aurora police said they’re aware that components of TdA are operating in Aurora.

In a statement, APD says in part:

“It would be improper at this time for the city and APD to make any conclusory statements about specific incidents or provide details about law enforcement strategy and operations. Based on our initial investigative work, we believe reports of TdA influence in Aurora are isolated.”

In response to the release of Romero’s video footage, Jurinsky hopes it will bring action.

“The footage is too real to deny,” she said. “There has to be something done now.”

Romero says she survived the ordeal by staying quiet, giving them food and bedbug spray.

Every night, she said she was praying she’d hear sirens.

In her new home, far away, the peace she feels is fleeting. Because for many others, she says there is no escape, no solution and no sign that help will ever come.

“My family lives in Aurora. My daughters live there. I talked them into moving to Aurora. If someone doesn’t do something now, their apartments are next,” she said.

The city and Aurora police established a special task force to address concerns about Venezuelan gang activity.

APD urges all community members, including members of our migrant communities, to please report crimes committed against them to their local law enforcement agencies and not remain silent victims. Crime victims can report crimes anonymously by calling Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720.913.STOP (7867). As always, information could change as the investigations continue at the local, state and federal levels.

A gathering of Venezuelan migrants spiraled out of control this week as gunshots rang out in the parking lot of a suburban Colorado town. 

In yet another sign of trouble inside the Venezuelan community living in the US, chaos unleashed by migrants living in Aurora, Colorado has surfaced in a TikTok video.

‘Those Venezuelans is taking over,’ a man can be heard saying in an online video posted to TikTok by user 100packsavvy. 

The July 29 footage shows bedlam in a Target parking lot in Aurora where Venezuelans had gathered in a weekend demonstration over the elections in their homeland.

While mostly peaceful, South American swarmed the shopping center, completely taking it over, with cars sardined, bumper-to-bumper.

This forced Target and other retailers in the area to close early, fearing their customers might get caught up in the demonstrations, according to Telemundo Denver. 

As night fell, the trashed parking lot littered with garbage turned from disgusting to dangerous. 

Police responded to several incidents, including gun shots being fired, the Spanish-speaking outlet reported. 

The TikTok users who made recorded the video claimed he and his companions were almost run over.

‘We almost just got hit,’ one man says. 

The incident is latest video from the Venezuelan community, which has come under scrutiny, in Aurora. 

Harrowing new footage appears to capture the moment an armed Venezuelan gang seized control of an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado

Then other members of the gang rush up the stairwell, bearing weapons. In the background, the men can be heard speaking in Spanish to one another

 Just hours ago, security video showed suspected gang members who have allegedly taken over an apartment complex in town.

Gun-totting men can be seen storming through the building in the video that emerged on Wednesday. 

A man in a hoodie lugs a high-powered rifle and pounds on a door in the building, while several others wield pistols.

The couple who filmed the footage told local station Fox 31 that it was recorded shortly before a shootout at the complex, which left one person grievously wounded. In the exchange of gunfire, several vehicles were also damaged.

‘A GANG HAS TAKEN OVER several apartment complexes in Aurora!’ local council member Danielle Jurinsky wrote on Twitter.

Local police stopped short of linking the thugs to the infamous Tren de Aragua, (known as TDA) but council member Jurinksy told Fox 31 that the building had been overrun by a Venezuelan gang.

Venezuela’s most violent gang Tren de Aragua has moved its headquarters to just across the US border in the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez

Tren de Aragua gang tattoos (pictured above) were part of a Department of Homeland Security bulletin that was recently shared with federal agents 

‘This isn’t just Americans. Other Venezuelans are being extorted by this gang,” Jurinsky said.

The footage comes as the migrant crisis under the Biden Administration has moved away from the US-Mexico border and into America’s cities. 

The Venezuelan mob has established footholds across the country, including New York, Colorado and Texas.

The Dallas Police Department has exclusively confirmed the presence of the gang in North Texas to the DailyMail.com 

In the Denver area, police from across the region have formed a task force to deal with the criminal organization in the Rookies. 

As DailyMail.com exclusively reported, TDA has set up a new headquarters at the doorstep of the US, in Juarez, Mexico. 

The city is directly across from El Paso, Texas.

Officials in Texas’s sixth largest city are working on a confidential plan to combat the gang’s threat.  

Last month, the US government designated Tren de Aragua a transnational criminal organization and announced a $5 million reward for the capture of its leader, Hector ‘El Nino’ Guerrero Flores

In one of the most brutal incidents yet of a brazen phone theft in NYC, a 62-year-old woman was seen being dragged on a Brooklyn street by a thief on a moped

Cindy and Edward Romero moved out of the apartment on Wednesday due to safety concerns.

‘It’s been a nightmare, and I can’t wait to get out of here,’ Cindy Romero told Fox as she packed up her possessions.

In their apartment, the Romeros had an elaborate system of locks running from the top of the door to the bottom.

‘Every day when we come home, we have to do this every time we go outside to take out the garbage,’ Cindy Romero said, demonstrating how the locks worked.

‘Every time we go to bed at night. We have to keep like this so that nobody can kick in the door,’ she added.