A damaged police car stands meters away from a crashed vehicle shortly after a gunfight in Tai'an, East China's Shandong province, Jan 4, 2011. Two gunmen shot dead three police officers, injured several others, and hijacked four vehicles as they tried to make their getaway - before their vehicle was rammed by police. One gunman committed suicide by shooting himself. The other was arrested by police. [China Daily]

TAI'AN, Shandong - Two suspects fired at the police on Tuesday while resisting arrest in downtown Tai'an city, East China's Shandong province, killing three policemen and wounding six others, according to the city's public security authorities.

One of the suspects was later caught by the police on Wenhua Road in the city's Taishan district, while the other one committed suicide by shooting himself at the scene, the local police said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

The police seized a double-barreled shotgun, a handmade pistol, a dagger and more than 180 bullets from the two men.

Five policemen, two auxiliary police and two civilians were injured in the incident. Three died later in the hospital and the others are receiving treatment.

The two gunmen were wanted in connection with a murder that took place late last month in the province's Dezhou city.

According to the police, the gunmen started firing around 11:20 am when officers, following a line of inquiry in the murder case, stopped by an apartment where a brother of one of the suspects lives in Tai'an city.

The men happened to be taking shelter in the building and fired from behind an iron grid door, wounding three police officers and one auxiliary officer before fleeing the scene.

They then carried out four successive carjackings in an effort to avoid being spotted by the police.

However, police officers caught up with the fugitives and intercepted their vehicle by crashing a patrol car into it before surrounding them in the middle of Wenhua Road in the city's Taishan district.

Jiang Yikang, secretary of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and other high-ranking provincial officials have visited the wounded in hospital and expressed their condolences to the families of the officers who died in the line of duty.

According to the country's firearms management regulations, it is illegal for any individual or institution to manufacture, own, transport, rent or sell guns and ammunition.

Anyone who is convicted of violating the regulations faces a jail term of three to seven years and, in serious cases, possibly a death sentence.