Investigators have identified three suspects seen in a viral video that captured men with guns forcefully entering an Aurora apartment, and one of them is already in police custody, officials announced Friday.
The six men who appeared in the security footage — five armed with handguns and one carrying a rifle — are wanted in connection with a fatal shooting near Dallas Street and 12th Avenue around 11:30 p.m. Aug. 18, Aurora police Chief Todd Chamberlain said at a Friday news conference.
As of Friday, police have no evidence that any of the men are connected to any specific gang, including Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that has a presence in the metro area, Aurora police Lt. DJ Tisdale said during the news conference.
“They victimized somebody, they mistreated somebody. I don’t care if they’re in a gang or not in a gang, I don’t care if they’re documented or undocumented — I want to hold them accountable,” Chamberlain said.
According to Chamberlain, the six armed men forcefully entered two apartments in the 1200 block of Dallas Street around 11:20 p.m. on Aug. 18 and threatened the residents with guns. He said the men were searching for a specific person they didn’t find.
Minutes later, the group was involved in a shooting just down the street that left one man — identified by police as 25-year-old Oswaldo Jose Dabion Araujo — dead, Chamberlain said.
About 12 hours after the shooting, investigators obtained a search warrant for a neighboring apartment and found a rifle hidden inside an oven, Tisdale said. That rifle is believed to be the weapon seen in the surveillance video.
Aurora police on Thursday obtained arrest warrants for 25-year-old Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, 20-year-old Niefred Jose Serpa-Acosta and 21-year-old Naudi Lopez-Fernandez on investigation of first-degree burglary and menacing with a firearm, both felonies, Chamberlain said.
Lopez-Fernandez was in custody Friday and Aurora investigators are working with state and federal partners to track down Zambrano-Pacheco and Serpa-Acosta, Chamberlain said. Police also are working with those partners to identify the three remaining men in the surveillance video.
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Chamberlain said the city of Aurora has seen a slight increase in criminal activity that began in September 2023, specifically noting an increase in aggravated assaults.
“Like most major cities, Aurora deals with crime issues and it deals with gang activity,” Chamberlain said. “When you look at a major city, those two things are in place. But we are not by any means overwhelmed by that issue, we are not by any means overtaken by Venezuelan gangs, TdA or any other gang.”
The police chief said he and other investigators had not had any reports of a protection tax, people being forced to pay rent to a gang or any other evidence of an apartment building takeover.
“Gangs are not in control of the city of Aurora,” Chamberlain said. “Are there gangs in the city of Aurora? Yes, there are. Are there gangs in most major cities throughout the United States? One-hundred percent there are. What we are doing now is effectively addressing that gang activity and stopping it.”
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