[Video] Episode 219: Aurora: Still Not Overrun by Venezuelans (feat. Dave Perry)

This week on the Get More Smarter Podcast, we have a real treat for you. Dave Perry, the 20 year veteran Editor of the Aurora Sentinel joins us to talk about the great City of Aurora, Colorado’s third largest (pop. 395,052) and first most racially-diverse city. A city that is, confusingly for us transplants, located in three counties at once (Arapahoe, Adams and Douglas), that fact is just the beginning of the many reasons we dubbed Aurora “the City of Many Truths” after speaking with Dave for this episode.

If you’re unfamiliar with the somewhat-manufactured-somewhat-real-definetly-ginned-up-for-political-purposes-while-being-walked-back-and-downplayed-by-Republicans-before-once-again-being-ginned-up-but-also-with-some-real-problems-and-real-gang-violence-and-crime-and-poverty-but-nowhere-near-what-Donald-Trump-or-JD-Vance-or-Elon-Musk-or-Danielle-Jurinsky-or-Mike-Coffman-(depending-on-the-day)-would-have-you-believe, there are plenty of in-depth news sources, right-wing propaganda YouTube videos, good-faith attempts at getting the story straight but really getting it wrong, and even a few pieces of actual journalism mixed in there. Here are a few outlets who have covered this story in the fairest light in our opinion:

• Denverite

  • Suspects in Aurora apartment attack have been ‘taxing’ and extorting victims, police say

  • Everyone’s talking about a Venezuelan gang in Aurora. Here’s what we know — and what we don’t

  • This Aurora neighborhood was all but forgotten — until the whole country started talking about it

• 9News

  • Aurora Police give update on armed kidnapping at troubled apartment complex

  • Aurora's mayor accuses Denver of secretly moving migrants into his city through nonprofits

  • Conservative councilwoman wants Colorado to send state law enforcement resources to Aurora

• Aurora Sentinel

  • Colorado school leaders worrying about immigration raids hear firsthand accounts

  • 2 suspected Venezuelan gang members arrested, linked to robberies, Aurora viral video

  • Aurora immigrants gird for deportations amid Trump’s threats and local promises

Of all of these, The Aurora Sentinel is the best sourced, most objective, and most importantly, most local of all, so we highly recommend you check out their site if you’re interested in continuing to follow this saga, but listening to this interview is a great way to get a crash course of the complex, multifaceted, Rorschach test that the Tren de Aragua/Aurora Apartment…Complex situation has spurred.

You’re not going to want to miss this interview with the guy with his ear the closest to the ground in a story that seems to get more and more distorted the further away from the actual facts it gets.

That’s it for us this week! If you loved listening to it as much as we loved recording it, you can thank us by subscribing to the pod wherever you listen, following us over on Nice Twitter aka Threads, or New Old Twitter AKA Bluesky, and forwarding this email or sharing this post with your friends, your enemies, and your favorite 30 year veteran of the local news business! THANK YOU so much for listening, and we’ll see you next time!