By Derek Kravitz and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 6, 2008

Two men were fatally shot by Baltimore police early yesterday in an exchange of gunfire after a party at a social hall, authorities said. A third man was wounded.

The shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. on a largely commercial street about a mile southwest of the Inner Harbor.

The party, in a hall that is rented out by a division of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, became rowdy, according to official accounts.

As private security guards moved about 100 people outdoors, fights broke out among members of the crowd, said Sterling Clifford, a Baltimore police spokesman.

He said police officers reported seeing three men with handguns. When police told the men to drop the guns, the men did not comply and one of them fired at the officers, Clifford said. The police returned fire, he said. "If you're going to go after police with guns, police are going to fire back," he said.

One man died at the scene and another at a hospital, Clifford said. The wounded man, who was hit in the hand, was expected to recover, the spokesman said.

A woman who said she lives in one of the few houses on the street said she heard shots early yesterday but thought at first they were fireworks connected to Fourth of July celebrations.

Shirley Sturgill said she first heard about five shots, then three.

Then, she said, she saw a man run screaming up the street and more officers arrive.

Usually "nothing happens on my street," she said, describing the incident as frightening.

Most often such confrontations involve a single armed man, and Clifford and a spokeswoman for the city prosecutor's office described the number of deaths as unusual.