Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman on Monday said that the city had offered — after earlier denying a request from the landowner — police protection to two gang-affected apartment buildings but also threatened to shut down the complexes if no routine services are provided soon.

“Last Thursday, Jason Batchelor, the City Manager, made an offer to the owner that the city would provide two police officers for each of the properties for two weeks, with an extension, if necessary, if the owner would assume responsibility for these two properties and place an onsite property manager in each one,” Coffman said on Facebook on Monday.

The offer announced Monday comes two months after the apartment landlords had requested security for their properties, which city officials denied because of staffing issues.

The city’s offer also contained a not-so-veiled threat.

“If the owner does not assume responsibility for these properties and start providing routine services, like trash removal, the city will be forced to close both apartment complexes as a last resort,” Coffman said.

It is unknown whether the city or CBZ Management will assume the costs for the police protection, assuming the landowner accepted the offer.

Neither the Florida PR firm, nor the law firm representing CBZ Management could be immediately reached for comment on Monday.

Shortly after an attorney representing CBZ Management reached out to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in June requesting help, the landlords asked the city for off-duty officers to patrol their properties, Joe Moylan, an Aurora Police Department spokesperson, said in an email to The Denver Gazette.

“He was told we didn’t have the staffing to provide adequate security at all his properties,” Moylan has said.

Police protection was offered to Whispering Pines and The Edge at Lowry, according to Coffman.

CBZ Management also owns Aspen Grove, which the city shut down and boarded up last month, citing health and safety issues. That move meant evicting roughly 300 residents, including children.

Based in Brooklyn, CBZ Management operates rental apartments in New York and Colorado with 11 properties in Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo.

In letters obtained by The Denver Gazette, CBZ Management — through their attorney — complained to Weiser and Batchelor that the gang had “forcibly taken control” of their properties.

Tren de Aragua, or TDA, is a Venezuelan prison gang operating in the Denver metro area involved in an array of criminal activities that include human trafficking, particularly of immigrant women and girls, drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and money laundering.

The gang’s victims are often killed by gang members, with their deaths publicized as a way to intimidate others from coming forward, according to U.S. officials.

While CBZ Management’s properties have been the focus of the media’s attention, the landlord’s attorney has said that these were “not an isolated event” and that other multi-family projects in Colorado were “subject to the same gang control.”

Initially, city officials — including Coffman — denied the gang was an issue in Aurora. But officials have walked those denials back as more details have emerged, including a video of armed men barging into an apartment unit.

In an interview last month, Coffman admitted that the city had “lost control” of the gang infiltration and that officials were “working aggressively” to reign in the gang. But he also insisted that the claims of gangs “overrunning” his city are exaggerated.

“The misrepresentation that all of Aurora has this problem is simply not true and it gives this city a black eye unjustifiably,” Coffman has said.

It is also unclear why the police protection is necessary now.

Coffman — who has bristled at media portrayals of a city overrun by gangs — appeared to address head-on community fears over safety by visiting the properties.

“Yesterday afternoon, I walked, unaccompanied, through the six apartment buildings at 12th and Dallas and the three apartment buildings on 13th and Helena,” Coffman wrote on Facebook.

“In walking through the apartment buildings at both complexes, I went through every floor of every building without incident.”

Coffman did not respond Monday to an email seeking comment.

Nearly 43,000 immigrants — mostly from South and Central America — have come to Denver over the past 22 months after crossing the U.S. southern border illegally, setting off a costly humanitarian crisis that at one point threatened to overwhelm the city’s ability to respond. An untold number of immigrants have fled Venezuela under President Nicolás Maduro’s rule, which has been marked by economic and political chaos.

Since Maduro assumed office in 2013, more than 7 million Venezuelans have fled, seeking refuge in countries around the globe, including the United States.