A shooting left two men dead and two others hospitalized early Saturday and left residents of a central Colorado Springs neighborhood badly shaken.

Just before 2 a.m., residents awoke to the sound of gunfire near the 800 block of Tia Juana Street — two blocks from the intersection of North Circle Drive and Galley Road.

When police arrived, the combatants were gone but there was blood on the roadway. Four injured men later turned up at Memorial Hospital downtown. Two of them died from their wounds. The other two remained hospitalized Saturday morning. Their conditions were not released.

Police haven’t released the names of the men who died and haven’t released information on suspects in the case. They also haven’t said what caused the fight that led to the gunfire.

Clorinda Madina and her husband have lived in the neighborhood since 1997 and said the area is safe aside from occasional car break-ins. She didn’t hear the fight, but her granddaughter was startled awake by the sound of two gunshots.

“We really haven’t had anything like this happen. It’s just scary. We couldn’t sleep after that last night,” Madina said Saturday.

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous because she fears for her life in the wake of the killings, said she woke up around 2 a.m. as cars screeched outside her home.

She saw five or six cars clustered on Tia Juana Street near Mission Street. A man got out of a white Dodge Neon four-door, running as a car raced toward him. The car hit him and careened onto the curb before speeding away, she said.

Police arrived about 10 minutes later.

The white Neon was left at the scene and stood amid a two-block stretch of Tia Juana Street between Dale Street and De Cortez Street, which was blocked by police tape.

Officers combed the area for evidence as the sun rose, seizing the Dodge for evidence. Nearly two-dozen yellow evidence markers peppered the asphalt as detectives went door to door looking for answers.

Once police reopened the street at noon, Madina and her husband stared in disbelief at a large patch of dried blood near tire marks. There was more blood down the block.

Blood was also spattered in the parking lot of Brunswick Zone Circle bowling alley, where police said the fight likely broke out.

Brunswick Zone Circle general manager Barry Herbert wasn’t at work when the shooting happened and said he didn’t know about it until an employee called him Saturday morning. He didn’t know if the fight started inside or outside the bowling alley.

“It’s a very family-oriented place,” Herbert said of the business. “What you see (during the day) is what you see at night.”

Dustin Spadafora has lived across from the bowling alley for about two years and said the night crowd there is rowdy. He has seen fights outside and is often unable to sleep from the “constant noise,” he said.

“There’s been a couple of times where there’s fights and everyone jumps in their cars before the cops show up,” Spadafora said.

Officers said they don’t have a description of suspects in the case, but police were looking for a white Cadillac, a blue Chevy and a red SUV in connection with the deaths, according to police radio traffic.

If the El Paso County Coroner rules the deaths homicides, they would be the 10th and 11th this year in the city. At this same time last year, there were 12 homicides in Colorado Springs.

Anyone with information about the shooting can call the Colorado Springs Police Department at 444-7000 or Crime Stoppers at 634-7867.

Stay tuned to gazettedev.gazette.com for the latest on this case.

Detectives work on Tia Juana Street in Colorado Springs, where police say two men were fatally shot early Saturday. Photo by GENNA ORD / THE GAZETTE