HAYS COUNTY — In late March, a group of Venezuelan relatives and friends, celebrating a pair of birthdays, rented a six-bedroom house in the southern tip of Austin with a pool and stunning views from every window of Texas’ Hill Country.
They decorated a table for a cake and blew up balloons. As the night faded, the kids went to bed and the adults kept hanging out.
Suddenly, at about 5 a.m. the next morning, the group heard explosions from flashbangs, followed by shouts from law enforcement yelling commands to get out of the house, according to interviews with two attendees…