Two cross-dressing men who were shot at by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who picked them up for a motel "party", police say.
The FBI said the driver, Ricky Shawatza Hall, 27, died at the scene, and his passenger remained hospitalised on Tuesday with unspecified injuries.
An NSA police officer was treated for minor injuries and released.
NSA police opened fire on the stolen sports utility vehicle after Hall failed to follow instructions for leaving a restricted area, authorities said.
As it turns out, Hall and his passenger had just driven off in the SUV of a 60-year-old Baltimore man, who told investigators that he had picked up the two strangers in Baltimore and brought them to a Howard Country motel to "party".
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Howard County Police "can't confirm there was any sexual activity involved," spokeswoman Mary Phelan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. She also declined to elaborate on whether drugs or alcohol were part of their plan.
The SUV's owner, who has not been publicly identified, said they checked into a room at the motel at about 7.30am on Monday, and that he used the bathroom about an hour later. When he came out, the men were gone, along with his car keys.
He called police to report the stolen car and just before 9am the men took a highway exit that leads directly to a restricted area at the NSA entrance at Fort Meade.
They may have simply taken a wrong turn while fleeing the motel, about 12 minutes away.
The two men were dressed as women, but "not in an attempt to disguise themselves from authorities," FBI spokeswoman Amy Thoreson said.
About 11,000 military personnel and about 29,000 civilian employees with security clearances work inside the barbed wire at the NSA complex.
Most drivers who mistakenly end up at the NSA gates carefully follow the orders of heavily armed federal officers and turn around without getting into more trouble.
In this case, authorities say the men ignored instructions on how to leave.
"The driver failed to obey an NSA Police officer's routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus," Jonathan Freed, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement.
The vehicle failed to stop, then "accelerated toward an NSA Police vehicle blocking the road. NSA Police fired at the vehicle when it refused to stop. The unauthorised vehicle crashed into the NSA Police vehicle."
