Man Slain by Police After Killing FBI Agent : Crime: Suspect was wanted for wounding two officers in January. He died in a gun battle after ambushing a federal official during stakeout.

A man wanted for unprovoked attacks on two District of Columbia police officers ambushed and killed an FBI agent waiting to arrest him Monday morning before he was shot to death in a gun battle with suburban Prince George’s County, Md., police and FBI agents.

The slain suspect was identified as Ralph McLean, 29, of Landover, Md. McLean was killed minutes after he fatally shot FBI agent William H. Christian Jr., 48, a 20-year veteran of the bureau, police said. Christian was attacked just after 1 a.m. as he sat in a car in the parking lot of a Prince George’s County public school.

Christian and 26 other investigators were staking out the parking lot because they believed McLean was coming there to meet his ex-girlfriend. The woman had been in protective police custody since implicating McLean in one D.C. attack and was cooperating with investigators. McLean had called her and asked to meet in the parking lot. She did not go.

As the investigators waited, McLean apparently emerged from some nearby woods and bushes and surprised Christian, shooting several times through the driver’s-side window with a MAC-11 assault pistol, investigators said. The agent never drew his gun.

The remaining 21 FBI agents, three D.C. police detectives and two Prince George’s County police officers at the stakeout chased McLean as he ran toward a shopping mall one block away, investigators said. McLean fired as he ran, investigators said, then bolted into a parking structure at the plaza, where he hid behind pillars during the gun battle.

At least three FBI agents, two Prince George’s police officers and a private security guard fired back, fatally injuring McLean, investigators said.

No other law enforcement officers were injured. Christian was the sixth law enforcement officer, and the third FBI agent, to be shot to death in the Washington area since November.

McLean had been sought in the wounding of two uniformed police officers, Sgt. Eric Hayes and Officer Vance Warren, in January.

His death raised serious questions about an investigation conducted by the Prince George’s County Police Department into the April 26 slaying of one of its officers, Cpl. John J. Novabilski.

Novabilski was shot to death as he sat in his marked car in full uniform outside a liquor store where he was moonlighting as a security guard. Prince George’s police arrested Jeffrey Curtis Gilbert, 25, of Lanham, Md., and charged him with killing Novabilski, saying witnesses identified him.

However, after Monday’s shootout, police found Novabilski’s service revolver as well as the weapon used to kill the officer near McLean’s body. Alfonso Hawkins, the interim Prince George’s police chief, said Gilbert remains the primary suspect.

Investigators said D.C. police and FBI agents have developed evidence suggesting that McLean hated police officers and wanted to kill them.