Nerves are on edge in an east Houston neighborhood where FBI agents killed two suspected gang members during a wild shootout overnight.

Steve Hernandez said it's a quiet neighborhood -- until the sun goes down.

KHOU-TV

Under cover FBI agents killed two and wounded two other gang member suspects after they were ambushed overnight.

"Last night was the worst we had never seen it like that," Hernandez said.

The agents were conducting an undercover drug investigation involving possible MS-13 gang members.

They approached an abandoned home on Liberty Road with HPD officers. They ordered the suspects inside to drop their weapons. Instead, the suspected gang members opened fire on the agents.

The agents returned fire, killing two suspects and wounding two others.

Three more were taken into custody.

None of the FBI agents was wounded.

Residents say crime has long been a problem in their neighborhood. Experts say grafitti in the area likely signals a gang presence.

"They're marking their territory to a certain extent so it may be a problem for that particular area where they are seeing grafitti," explained HPD Captain Mike Graham, head of the gang division.

Graham says it's hard to say whether gang-related crimes are on the rise since HPD only recently updated their database to better document them.

Steve Hernandez just hates to see it in his neighborhood.

"We're scared somebody might try to hide in our yard and try to get in our house," Hernandez siad.

The names of the dead suspects have not been released. Investigators aren't saying yet whether they were MS-13 gang members.