Robber Killed in Canoga Park Shootout : Crime: Police said gunfire erupted after three men knocked at a residence where fake IDs and cash were found.

Three robbers fired rifles through the window of an apartment inhabited by two men who apparently sold fake IDs, and the dealers shot back, killing one of the robbers in “a real shootout,” police said Wednesday.

Los Angeles Police Detective Rick Swanston said the robbers seemed to be after the hundreds of dollars and more than a dozen fake driver’s licenses and immigration cards found by police in the apartment.

The robbers knocked on the door of the second-floor, one-bedroom apartment in the 7300 block of Eton Avenue about 11:30 Tuesday night, Swanston said.

Inside were three men--the two residents and a friend who was visiting, Swanston said. One resident peered out a window next to the door and saw three men holding guns. The robbers then leveled rifles at the window and opened fire, the detective said.

The two residents grabbed their own guns and returned fire, Swanston said. The third man in the apartment fled, dashing to the rear room and jumping out the back window. But he became caught in the razor wire on the fence behind the complex, Swanston said. He was questioned by police, then treated at West Hills Regional Medical Center for cuts from the wire and released.

The gunfire from the apartment routed the robbers, Swanston said. One of them was hit in the chest and collapsed, his .30-caliber rifle at his side. The other two fled in a dark foreign car.

After driving off the robbers, the two apartment residents also fled.

More than 20 shots were fired in the course of the gun battle, Swanston said. “That was a real shootout,” he said.

In the apartment next door, Julie Hagen was getting ready to go to sleep when she heard the shots. Her 4-year-old daughter Kristyna awoke and started screaming for her mother.

“I was warned this was a bad neighborhood,” said a shaken Hagen Wednesday.

Residents of the building said visitors came “all day, all night” to the apartment where the two men were staying.

Swanston said the two residents, whose names police did not know, ran a phony identification card mill out of the apartment, taking in hundreds of dollars. He speculated that the men who attacked Tuesday knew the forgers had a cache of money.

Swanston said the identity of the dead man, a Latino in his mid-20s, is also unknown.

Juan Carlos Rodriguez, 15, who lives with his family a few doors down from the apartment, said his family is considering leaving the building.

“The next time this happens, they might just bring a bomb,” he said.