Two FBI agents were shot at a barricaded home not far from the protest-wracked St. Louis suburb of Ferguson early Wednesday, police said. An FBI official told NBC News that it may have been an attempt at “suicide by cop”

One agent was struck in the shoulder and the other in the leg while helping University City police prepare to make an arrest. They were taken to a hospital for surgery and were expected to recover.

The Wednesday morning incident involving the FBI agents followed hours after a clash between police and protesters in Ferguson.

It happened just before 4 a.m. ET. The shooting was “not directly related to the Ferguson protests,” said an FBI spokeswoman in St. Louis. An FBI official in Washington said the suspect was accused of firing at police Tuesday night.

Some 2,000 National Guard troops helped ward off a second night of rampant arson and looting in suburban St. Louis after a grand jury declined to indict a white policeman in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, and sympathy protests spread to several U.S. cities.

-Tamara El (@_SheWise_)