Police were alerted to shots being fired just after midnight in southeast D.C. Tuesday night by the ShotSpotter system where they encountered three women and two men in an SUV.

D.C. officers rushed to the area, which is near Martin Luther King Elementary School, in marked police cruisers and came under fire by the individuals inside the SUV, police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said.

Sternbeck said the responding officers were forced to return fire at the suspects, who then barricaded themselves in the vehicle, and refused to comply with officers’ orders to exit the vehicle and surrender.

The two men and three women finally surrendered to police after a 30 minute standoff. Police had not yet released the names of the suspects as of Tuesday morning but confirmed no injuries were reported in the incident.

A police official told WaPo the group had fired at the D.C. police to avoid arrest, and not as part of a targeted attack on law enforcement, but this is yet another example of the impotency of Washington D.C.’s gun laws.

District of Columbia gun laws are among the most strict in the United States. So whose hands hold guns in D.C.?

People who would shoot at police.

Police engage in shootout with armed subjects in SE DC. No injuries. Police say was "not planned attack on police" but to avoid arrest.

— Peter Hermann (@phscoop) July 12, 2016