Muzik nightclub was feverishly busy, packed with club-goers dancing shoulder-to-shoulder at the official after-party for rapper Drake’s OVO Fest, when gunfire erupted inside the club early Tuesday, before spilling out to the streets.

As bullets rang out inside the Exhibition Place nightclub, a crush of frantic partiers scattered. Female club-goers tore off their high heels and fled from the club. Moments later, Toronto police officers on scene ran into live fire as the shooting moved outside Muzik, near Dufferin St.

As bullets flew, one bicycle cop was just “seconds behind” as a woman was shot and collapsed to the ground, dying, police say.

By the time the gunfire ceased, a man and a woman were dead and another three people were injured in Toronto’s worst incidence of gun violence this year.

“This was a brazen, large-scale ongoing firearm incident, where our officers and members of the public were directly in the line of fire,” said Toronto Police deputy chief Peter Sloly. “We were very lucky that this was not a larger body count, quite frankly.”

What provoked the gunfire and how many shooters were involved are questions at the heart of what police say is a “complex” investigation. One eyewitness in the club during the shooting told the Star the burst of about 10 gunshots seemed to happen out of the blue, with no commotion beforehand.

Also top among the questions investigators must now probe is how one or more guns made it inside Muzik club — past a phalanx of police officers outside and more than five dozen security guards, some of whom were specially trained to conduct body searches on everyone entering.

Homicide detectives are still piecing together the sequence of events and have not released the identities of the two homicide victims. There was also no information on suspects Tuesday, though police released descriptions of two men considered “persons of interest.”

The shooting began inside Muzik, near Dufferin St., around 3:20 a.m. One witness, who asked not to be named, said the shooting happened on the west side of the nightclub near the VIP area, where people had been partying at tables with bottle service.

Moments later, more gunfire, this time outside of the club, near the Dufferin gates to the Exhibition grounds.

The bullets left a path of victims beginning inside the club. One man was pronounced dead on Muzik’s outdoor patio; a witness who was inside Muzik at the time said he was shot in the head.

Near the club, just outside the fence separating Muzik from Saskatchewan Dr., a woman and a man were found with gunshot wounds. Both were taken to the hospital, and the woman has since been treated and released.

North of the Dufferin St. gates, another female victim in her early to mid-20s was found. A police officer performed CPR on her seconds after she was shot, according to police, but she died on the way to the hospital.

Stressing the investigation was in the early stages, Toronto police homicide Insp. Peter Moreira said it appears the deceased woman, from Toronto, “didn’t have a role to play in any of the events that led up to the shooting.” She may not have ever been inside Muzik, Moreira said.

Finally, a fifth victim was found 2.5 kilometres north of Muzik, near Dufferin and College Sts. after he flagged down an ambulance. Police believe he’d been at Muzik but it’s unlikely he left on his own, due to the severity of his injuries.

Shortly before the shootings, on-duty officers were in the area alongside paid-duty cops assigned to the grounds. Before the gunfire, a call went in for backup due to a large number of people crowded outside the club hoping to see VIPs inside. No officer fired any shots during the chaotic scene.

There was also private security at the club Tuesday, including 73 security guards on duty and 15 specially trained guards who conduct body searches, “including the use of metal-detecting wands, on all patrons entering the property,” according to a statement released by Muzik.

“We’re absolutely shocked by this horrific attack,” said Muzik owner Zlatko Starkovski in the statement. “We are fully co-operating with Toronto Police and have full confidence they will get to the bottom of this horrific incident and bring these people to justice.”

Jelila Juman, who has lived in the area for seven years, said she and her husband heard the sound of a woman screaming around 3:30 a.m. “We woke up to that,” she said. “It’s just horrific, actually.”

This is the second year in a row that a shooting has taken place connected to the OVO Fest after-party at Muzik. At a news conference Tuesday morning, Sloly acknowledged that there has been a spike in shootings this year, an increase that is mirrored throughout North America. The city is currently on par with numbers from 2012.

At a news conference, Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard) called the shootings “unacceptable, reprehensible acts that have no place in our city.”

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Moreira said Toronto police have only spoken with a small fraction of the people who were at the 3,000-patron-capacity club. He urged witnesses to come forward, inviting attendees at the after-party to upload any photos or video from any point in the night to a special website set up by Toronto Police.

“This is a cowardly act, in which the perpetrators rely on the fear and silence of a great number of people there to continue, quite frankly, to lead this kind of life,” he said.

Officers are specifically looking for two people of interest. The first, from the scene in the club, is described as a black man, six-foot to six-foot-one, 25 or 26 years old, with a fresh buzz cut and wearing a light purple crewneck sweater with a colourful design on the front and dark blue jeans.

The second man from the scene north of the Dufferin gates is described as a brown man with a skinny build, five-foot-ten to five-foot-eleven, 24 to 28 years old, wearing a yellow-and-burgundy plaid button-up shirt. He was accompanied by two others who are not considered people of interest, Moreira said.

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