Sand City >> Police officers fatally shot two individuals in a gun fight in the parking lot of the Target store in Edgewater Shopping Center in Sand City on Monday.

Around 3:30 p.m., two Sand City police officers attempted to serve warrants on two individuals when the suspects opened fire and began a fire fight with the two police. Both officers were wounded in the gunfight and both suspects were killed, Sand City Police Chief Brian Ferrante and District Attorney Dean Flippo announced in a joint media briefing Monday afternoon at the scene.

“After the officers confronted them, the suspects opened fire,” said Ferrante. “Both officers injured were transported to the hospital via ambulance and are in stable condition.”

Bouchra Gygax, a student at Monterey Peninsula College, was trying to find parking at the Sand City shopping center, which is bordered by Highway 1 and California Avenue, when she saw two policemen holding up a third man and the foot of an individual sticking out of a car right in front of them.

“While I was waiting people started pulling out their phones and somebody said ‘the cop got shot and he shot back.’”

The scene quickly became chaotic, Gygax said, as she saw patrol cars and ambulances coming from everywhere.

“It was crazy,” she said.

Chief Ferrante requested the DA’s bureau of investigation conduct the investigation.

“We now have 15 investigators that are involved in gathering evidence both here and also with the hospital” at Natividad Medical Center, said Flippo.

Officers from Seaside, Marina, Monterey, the California Highway Patrol and the Monterey County Sheriff’s department aided Sand City at the scene. No further information was released on the two suspects pending notification of next of kin.

Ferrante said the officers knew the suspects and knew they had outstanding warrants.

“Fortunately no innocent bystanders were involved,” Ferrante said.

The two subjects’ deaths were the third and fourth killings in Sand City this year.

In March, Khaleel Johnson, 19, of Seaside was fatally shot while driving on Highway 1 near the Del Monte Boulevard exit in Sand City next to the Edgewater Shopping Center. Two teenagers were suspected in that killing.

And in April, Helen Morrow, 79, was stabbed in her Sand City home. She was gravely injured and removed from life support thereafter.

Though Target was closed in the wake of the shooting, the other 20 or so businesses in the shopping center stayed open.

Herald staff writer Claudia Meléndez Salinas contributed to this report. James Herrera can be reached at 726-4344.