A baby shower hosted by the most violent, and coldblooded gangster in The Wire ended in a real and deadly gun battle in New York yesterday.

Jamie Hector, who plays callous Marlo Stanfield in the Baltimore cop drama, was holding the party to celebrate his wife’s pregnancy when a gate-crasher apparently exchanged almost 50 bullets with guests.

Police said that one man was killed and two more injured by the assailant, who allegedly followed one of the survivors to the hospital and fired more shots at him.

"What a gun battle," a police source told the New York Daily News. "They have been watching too much TV."

Hector, 33, who portrayed the most fearsome of the drug lords in The Wire, also starred in Heroes and provided one of the voices in the violent computer game Grand Theft Auto. The Stanfield character was renowned for his casual use of deadly force to maintain his drug-dealing business.

It is not clear whether the actor was still at the gathering in Brooklyn shortly after 1am when it was apparently interrupted by a storm of bullets.

Police and paramedics arrived at East 93rd Street in East Flatbush at about 1.20am, where they found evidence of a running gun battle with at least 46 shell casings strewn across half a block. Two guns, a .40-calibre Glock and a .45-calibre Smith & Wesson, were discovered but no suspects were arrested.

It is thought that Linton Williams, 17, of Brooklyn, died at the scene. While Andrew Filson, 32, was injured. He was reportedly taken in a car to Downstate Medical Centre where a second vehicle approached and another round of gun-shots were fired. He was in a critical condition yesterday.

Walter Parker, 22, was also thought to have been shot in the leg outside the party. He was taken to Brookdale University Hospital in an ambulance.

Lisa Bruce, 35, who lives near by said that she was watching a film at home when she heard gunshots "exploding like firecrackers". She looked out of her window and saw one of the victims. "He was shouting, trying to tell somebody that he needed help," she told the Daily News.

"Then the ambulance came, and the man limped out of the bushes and said, 'I'm shot, I'm shot,' and pointed to his leg. Then they took him away."

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