Police: Men in shooting at NSA had gone to hotel to ‘party’

A helicopter hovers over Fort Meade after a vehicle rammed a gate to the National Security Agency, Monday, March 30, 2015 in Fort Meade, Md. AP

FORT MEADE, Maryland — Two cross-dressing men who were shot at by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who picked them up for a motel “party,” police said Tuesday.

One suspect was killed and the other was injured, along with an NSA police officer, as the driver of the stolen SUV apparently tried to get away from the guards.

The SUV’s owner, a 60-year-old man from Baltimore who has not been publicly identified, told investigators that he had picked up the two strangers in Baltimore. They arrived around 7:30 a.m. Monday to “party” at the nearby Terrace Motel in Elkridge, Howard County Police said.

Police spokeswoman Mary Phelan told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she “can’t confirm there was any sexual activity involved,” and declined to elaborate on whether drugs or alcohol were part of their “party.”

The SUV owner told police that he went to the bathroom about an hour after checking in to a room, and when he came out, the others were gone, along with his car keys. He called police to report the stolen car. Minutes later, just before 9 a.m., the men took a highway exit that leads directly to a restricted area at the NSA entrance at Fort Meade.

The FBI said Monday that agents do not believe terrorism was their motive. No one has explained yet why the men ended up outside the NSA. However, the new timeline suggests they may have simply taken a wrong turn while fleeing the motel, about 12 minutes away.

Once so secretive that it was known as “No Such Agency,” the location of NSA’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, is no longer a secret to millions of people who live in the sprawling suburban communities between Baltimore and Washington and the thousands of daily commuters who traverse the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, where the NSA has a dedicated, employees-only exit. About 11,000 military personnel and about 29,000 civilian employees with security clearances work on the property.

It’s not uncommon for drivers to take the wrong exit and end up at the tightly secured gates.

Most drivers then carefully follow the orders of heavily armed federal officers and turn around without getting into more trouble. In this case, authorities say the men ignored instructions on how to leave, and ended up stuck behind barriers. Police ordered them to stop, and then things escalated quickly.

“The driver failed to obey an NSA Police officer’s routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus,” Jonathan Freed, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement. The vehicle failed to stop, then “accelerated toward an NSA Police vehicle blocking the road. NSA Police fired at the vehicle when it refused to stop. The unauthorized vehicle crashed into the NSA Police vehicle.”

The FBI declined to comment on the conditions of the surviving suspect and officer, except to say they were being treated at a local hospital. They also haven’t said how the man driving the stolen car died.