New Jersey ? A running shootout that erupted during a police stakeout ended Thursday morning with two armed robbery suspects dead and five officers wounded by gunfire, two of them critically.

Police said Hassan Shakur had been hiding a pump-action shotgun under a monk’s robe when police approached him in the street at about 5:15 a.m. and he began firing.

The shootout ended when SWAT officers fought their way into a third-floor apartment where the suspects had taken cover at about 6:45 a.m. The officers were met by shotgun blasts that ripped through the apartment building’s walls and doors.

Residents of the complex said they awoke to the sounds of gunfire and police running down the halls.

Marlon Harrison, who lives on the second floor of the building, said he heard gunshots echo off the alleyway outside his window.

“It was like the Army out there,” Harrison said.