JULY 2025 – The NYT last September published a report on Aurora, Colorado, calling the emergence of an armed Venezuelan gang in a housing complex there a “false story.” Here’s a link to the Sept. 15, 2024, article, which did not allow for reader comments::
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/trump-aurora-colorado-immigration.html
But last week the NYT, in as close to a reversal as you’ll ever see in journalism, published another report headlined “Democrats denied this city had a gang problem. The truth is complicated.” It was written by a guest Colorado journalist, Ted Conover, who in high school had worked at the weekly newspaper the Aurora Sentinal. He reflected on the many demographic changes in the suburb of Denver, among other observations. . The bottom line: While the gang may have numbered 50 or 100 or 150, it was enough to gain the attention of Trump’s campaign, which effectively exploited the problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/magazine/aurora-colorado-venezuela-gangs.html
At least give credit to the NYT for running Conover’s piece that revises the view on the situation in Aurora. In recent years it’s become dangerous to admit any kind of mistake, lest political and press opponents feast on it.
Confirmation of the problem of illegal immigrant gangs seemed to pop out in more than one thousand reader comments. Two of the most popular comments:
Some immigrants are gang members and Democrats need to acknowledge this. I know because we have some of them in my town, moving from Chicago into quiet neighborhoods with tree-lined streets and brick bungalows. Their own parents and grandparents don’t say anything because the young men terrorize them, too. There’s also large section of lovely vintage apartment buildings in town but they have trouble renting because everybody knows the buildings attract gangbangers. Nobody wants to get shot. Trump is exploiting the situation in the worst way and I’m against that, but I’m sorry, it’s not all just mariachis and yummy churro cart vendors. There’s a problem and it needs to be stopped.
Thank you, Ted Conover, for writing this. This has become too commonplace; Democrats deny a problem that is obvious to a particular group, whether it’s on a campus or in a city, etc., and then it becomes very apparent to the general public only when Trump and his media following blow everything way out of proportion, and bring a complicated truth to a black and white conclusion to force the hand of whoever is in charge, whether it’s a college president or a mayor.