When I asked a friend at Taste of Ethiopia festival this summer in Aurora, she was nervous. That’s what watching Fox News will do – scare a person away from the best coffee in the world.

We didn’t encounter any gang members and instead enjoyed the hospitality of the city’s Ethiopian community. On the way home, I introduced them to my food utopia, the H-Mart grocery store, again without incident.

Aurora has over 200 restaurants serving food from around the world and hosts several fantastic festivals. It truly is the world in one city. I worked in the city for years and ate well. Just as importantly, I never feared for my safety.

Aurora’s affable Mayor Mike Coffman, who moved to the city as a child, is a strong and consistent advocate for his city and its unique, international flavor. Too bad that can’t be said about all of the city’s elected officials. One city councilor in particular, Danielle Jurinsky, has recently generated a lot of negative press for the city and contributed to the false narrative spread by former President Donald Trump.

Jurinsky goes on to say that the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang has taken over several Aurora apartment complexes. Trump echoes those claims, most recently saying that the gang is “triggering a string of violent crimes across America, particularly in Aurora, Colorado.” He promised to liberate the “conquered” city.

At a recent town hall, Coffman corrected the record. “There was a likelihood, but there was a law enforcement response to this problem.” Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said, “This city is not overrun by TDA. This city is not controlled by TDA. I’m going to stand up to you right now and say that’s an incredibly false narrative. It is a narrative that is not validated or supported by any statistics, any data, any information.”

Records show nine gang members have been charged with about a dozen criminal incidents over a 10-month period, including shootings, assaults, thefts and threatening people with weapons. Although these are serious crimes, Aurora, a city of 400,000 people, does not live under the rule of gangs.