October 02, 2024 02:29 PM UTC

"Dr. Phil" Jumps On Board The Aurora Crazy Tren

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Westword’s Bennito Kelty reports, the substantial viewership of daytime talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw, trusted by millions for the advice he dispenses on air but also with a record of controversies and legal trouble of his own manufacture, was infotained on Monday with yet another wildly exaggerated portrayal of Aurora, Colorado, a city supposedly under siege by the Venezuelan “supergang” Tren de Aragua:

“Residents in a Denver suburb say their apartment building was overtaken by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” Dr. Phil said. “TdA has been targeting cities like New York, Chicago and, yes, even Dallas,” where the show is filmed.

The episode, titled “Armed & Dangerous: Colorado Town Overrun by a Criminal Gang?,” was filmed on September 18 and aired two weeks later. Dr. Phil spent most of the episode talking to Aurora resident Cindy Romero, whose door-camera footage from August 18 captured six armed men walking through the halls of an apartment building. The video went viral later that month and spurred national headlines of a takeover of the building, and city, by Venezuelan gangs.

“Imagine looking at your security camera footage and seeing this: men with machine guns outside your door, walking the hallways or trying to break into your home,” Dr. Phil said. “This footage has become a new focal point in our immigration debate.” [Pols emphasis]

The problem with these particular sweeping statements of the kind that Dr. Phil regularly cautions his guests against making is that all these weeks later, the now-infamous footage of men outside an Aurora apartment complex carrying guns has not been confirmed to actually depict Venezuelan gang members at all. As the Aurora Sentinel reported yesterday:

Aurora police say they have identified three more suspects seen in an Aurora apartment video gone viral that has become central to a firestorm of misinformation and controversy over disputed Venezuelan gang activity in the city.

Neither the three new suspects — nor three others previously identified or arrested after being seen in the video carrying guns inside The Edge apartment complex — have been linked to Venezuelan gangs, or any gang, police said. [Pols emphasis]

Later in the show, Dr. Phil brought out Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who was one of the original sources of the unsubstantiated tale of the “takeover” of several run-down apartment buildings that just happen to have the same out-of-state management and just happened to be in trouble already with the city of Aurora for years of code violations. Jurinsky, a realtor in her day job, fully bought into the crisis PR spin from CBZ Management that their staff had been driven out of these buildings, which residents insist is not the case. After weeks of embarrassment in the press, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, who had himself helped spread these false stories before doing an about-face for the good of his city, prevailed upon Jurinsky to co-author a statement admitting that the rumors were overblown.

By this time, of course, Donald Trump had picked up the “Aurora Has Fallen” story for daily use in his campaign stump speeches, and the lie had a life of its own. Trump’s promise to visit Aurora within two weeks, where Mayor Coffman says he is waiting to prove the story is false, expires today with no sign he intends to make good.

Although Dr. Phil says he won’t be endorsing anyone in the presidential race, he appeared this week with Trump surrogate RFK. Jr. at a “Make America Healthy Again” sideshow tour in Pennsylvania, and also gave Trump a friendly interview in August. Enough has been publicized about the gap between Trump’s depiction of Aurora and reality that we’re surprised to see McGraw regurgitating what most of us in Colorado know is, to paraphrase the outgoing President, a bunch of xenophobic malarkey.

This will unfortunately make it more difficult to take advice from Dr. Phil going forward.