“You guys are f*cked… run for your lives!” the killer screamed at the five members of the band Grupo Reacción, while gripping a pistol with both hands and aiming it directly at them. It was the early hours of Sunday, March 29.
The young men on the receiving end of this fatal warning had been hired to provide entertainment for a birthday party. Two weeks prior to the event, they had received a deposit of 20,000 pesos to seal the deal. They were scheduled to play from 9:00 PM on Saturday, March 28, until 1:00 AM on Sunday, March 29, but they had been asked to extend their set.
According to statements given by the surviving musicians, they had absolutely no friction with their attacker—who, in fact, had been the one to hire them—prior to the shooting. Throughout the evening, the venue staff treated the birthday boy—a young man described as being approximately 25 years old, of light-brown complexion, and 1.70 meters tall—with courtesy. He was dressed entirely in black, wore a pouch of the same color across his chest, and had a tattoo resembling a coiled tube behind his left ear.
The artists arrived at the “El Roble Jardín” social hall—located at 3040 Roble Street in the Ciudad Jardín neighborhood—with plenty of time to set up, and began playing precisely at 9:00 PM.
Present at the venue were two servers—a man and a woman—and seated at a table were the birthday boy, five male friends, and nine young women dressed in flashy attire who spent several hours dancing on the floor, while the birthday boy drank whiskey and his guests consumed light beer. No food was served.
Around midnight, the birthday boy stood up and began “requesting some badass *corridos*.” On three or four separate occasions, he requested—and the band played—the *corrido* titled “Fresas de la Capital,” a song that glorifies drug traffickers and hitmen associated with the Sinaloa Cartel.
