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(Kenneth K. Lam/The Baltimore Sun via AP)

BALTIMORE (AP) — A suspect died and an officer was wounded in a shootout Sunday evening in a violence-prone Baltimore district where a “crime suppression initiative” was taking place, Baltimore’s interim police chief said.

Interim Police Chief Gary Tuggle said at a late-night news conference that the gunfire erupted just before 6:30 p.m. in a west Baltimore neighborhood. He said the male officer, a police veteran, was being treated at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and that the injuries did not appear life-threatening.

He did not release the name of the man who they said shot the officer before being killed.

No one else was hurt, Tuggle told reporters near the scene in the Poppleton neighborhood. The immediate area place was quickly cordoned off by investigators as an “active crime scene,” and only local residents could get in. Bright lights were brought in on towers to illuminate the scene as officers investigated into the night.

The Baltimore Sun reported that two people were shot and wounded last week in the same area.

Asked about the crime suppression program’s activities, Tuggle didn’t immediately elaborate on its methods.

“There’s been a lot of violence in this area and we have taken extra steps in this area to address the violence,” he said Sunday.

Tuggle said crime suppression operations had been carried out in other districts of the city and that this was just another area where that initiative was being undertaken. He said the shootout began after the officer came upon the suspect, and that officers with the crime suppression initiative weren’t actively seeking the person who was fatally shot.

Kelly Blanding said he was watching football in a home near where the shooting erupted.

He told The Sun he heard so many shots that “I started to wonder, when is it gonna stop?”

“It was like a war out here,” Blanding added.

Authorities said they were still gathering information, and declined to identify the officer and the suspect by name or race. Tuggle said police would be looking at body-worn camera footage and gathering evidence, an activity that would continue after sunrise.

Tuggle also didn’t say how long investigators would keep the neighborhood closed off.

The wounded officer was in good spirits Sunday night, according to a police officers’ union, whose president visited the trauma center with other officials, the union tweeted, according to the newspaper.

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