SAN JOSE — A male suspect and a female hostage are dead after a three-hour standoff erupted in gunfire Monday evening, sources confirmed.

The incident began shortly after 2:15 p.m. when a man took a woman by force into a home on the 4400 block of Camden Avenue, according to San Jose police. As the man retreated into the home, he fired two shots from a handgun into the ground.

Police set up a perimeter and evacuated several houses along the busy Camden Avenue corridor, cordoning off an entire quadrant of the neighborhood. Neighbors watched from afar for more than three hours as San Jose MERGE officers surrounded the home and worked out how to best reach those inside. Police would not confirm late Monday if officers had been able to speak with those inside the home in attempts to coerce them out unharmed.

Just after 5 p.m., a man in a white baseball cap and blue jeans walked out from the side of the home, carrying a handgun. MERGE officers swarmed, but it was unclear if the man turned around to run back inside or if officers backed him into the side yard of the home.

There were several loud bangs as police deployed flash bangs before several gunshots could be heard. Police could not confirm who fired first or if police had fired their weapons at all during their encounter with the suspect.

The entirety of the confrontation lasted seconds, and police quickly called an awaiting San Jose fire truck to the scene, where the male suspect was pronounced dead.

Sources also confirmed that the female hostage, whose identity was not released, was found dead.

One MERGE officer, only identified as a man, was grazed by gunfire, police confirmed. He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. His wound is considered nonlife-threatening.

Neighbor Laura Quintana said she got a call from her husband late Monday afternoon telling her there was something going on just a few doors down from their home.

Quintana said her husband described the scene as a “war zone,” that police had at one point been in their backyard and that she was told she could not go home.

She added that she believed a family lived at the home where the hostage situation took place Monday, saying she had noticed a man and a woman walking up Camden Avenue with a small child in the past, but that they did not interact much with their neighbors.

Quintana said the situation Monday unnerved her. “I moved away from a bad area,” she said. “This is the second time this has happened in the last few years.”

Staff writer Robert Salonga contributed to this report. Contact Katie Nelson at 408-920-5006 and follow her at Twitter.com/katienelson210.