Guns waving in the air, the partygoers danced inside a recording studio on a fashionable city block, near a bar with craft cocktails like “Espresso Yourself” and a boutique hotel with what a Michelin Guide called a “bohemian-baroque aesthetic.”
Then, just after midnight, three rival gang members descended on the alley behind the studio and began firing. The partygoers cracked a door and shot back wildly. Nearly 100 bullets tore into the night, many striking a nearby supermarket and homes.
It was a miracle no one was killed or injured, the police said. When the dust settled, officers recovered 16 guns tossed into trash bins, dumped in the alleyway and shoved under a couch — each one smuggled across the southern border, the police said.
Canada’s border with the United States, that is.
