EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Poor gang victims find out no one cares | Editors

Tren de Aragua (TdA) gangbangers are dangerous, fearsome bullies. Governor Jared Polis, who knows the gang, acts like the gym teacher and ignores the locker room villains who torment weaker children.

Think of high school, where victims of bullying live in fear. They lose their self-esteem and doubt their worth.

The most tortured victims suffer long-lasting emotional scars. A search of internet forums for bullying stories reveals a pattern. Tortured children approach an adult for help and receive something like this, posted on Quora:

“When we returned to the locker room, half a dozen kids grabbed me and pushed me onto a bench,” wrote a former corporate finance director.

“Then those kids, and some others, all spit on me…. I took a shower and told the coach what happened. He rolled his eyes, was completely disinterested, and when I was done he said ‘go cry to your mother’… That’s when I learned that no one cared and no one was going to help me.”

Similar stories abound, of emotional and physical abuse. Almost everyone who was bullied as a child knows this well. Too many authorities are unable or unwilling to stop abusers, often shaming the victim for complaining.

This is the dynamic in Colorado, where state government and Denver policies have created a playground for Venezuelan gangs. They have taken over two low-cost Aurora apartment complexes, known politically as “affordable housing.”

As discovered and reported by The Gazette, Aurora officials knew or suspected for much longer than previously revealed that TdA in their city was much larger than a handful of members in a single complex. Other emails obtained by The Gazette show that TdA chose to locate in metro Denver because of city and state policies.

News anchor, reporter and attorney Shannon Bream invited Polis on “Fox News Sunday” last week to ask him about the gangs. Bream reminded Polis of a viral photo showing a gang severely beating an apartment manager. She played a video of gangsters with military-style rifles breaking into an Aurora apartment. She spoke about The Gazette’s findings.

Bream played a video of former President Donald Trump discussing the issue at a recent rally in Aurora. She reminded Polis that the apartment managers had written to him about their plight. She explained that a third-party investigation had confirmed the gang problem. Despite this, Bream reports, residents and managers claim they are not being heard, and that “innocent people are left to fear for their lives.”

“What’s the plan?” Bream asked, allowing Polis to express his concern and hopefully announce a strategy.

Instead, Polis responded with this:

“Well, look, the Aurora police, the Republican mayor of Aurora have a very different version than they told me… but the police, the mayor continues to reassure us and of course they have had some events, they have been to the complexes . They say they were never under gang control. So it seems like another one of those things that Donald Trump is exaggerating or making up.”

It’s not ‘crying at mom’, but has a similar effect. These victims hear that the governor, who has never lived in “affordable housing,” cannot feel their pain. They would exaggerate because experts say so from the safe confines of government buildings.

The governor is normally a man of compassion. Yet here we see an astonishing level of cognitive dissonance, likely the manifestation of election and immigration politics overtaking common sense.

Among the people in the gang-infested apartments are single parents who work multiple jobs and can’t make ends meet. They want safety for their children, but they cannot afford to escape. They don’t have time to argue with the civil service because it denies their concerns.

Most people terrorized by gangs probably keep their mouths shut because they know the dangers of reporting bad men with guns. They will be rejected and judged by experts who are not there, as we have seen. If authorities respond without solving the problem, the bullies may retaliate. This means that the gang reports are understated rather than exaggerated.

The Polis and other elites must stop letting politics distort their better instincts. Coloradans threatened by gangs need to be heard and believed. Politicians representing these Coloradans, especially Polis, must stop at nothing to keep them safe.

The editorial board of the Gazette