I was out tonight with a Baltimore police officer showing an Iraqi cop around the city. At left, Baltimore Officer Robert Horne shows Lt. Col. Saad Maan al-Mosawi (on the right) around near the Avenue Market. Then, at a routing assault call on Park Avenue, the radio erupted with frantic cries of an officer under fire.

It was up in Northwest, just off Reisterstown Road, and all police knew at that moment was that an officer had been shot. Horne sped off with his Iraqi counterpart and reached he  scene on Oakmont Avenue in time to see the officer being rushed off to the hospital.

Police had returned fire, hitting two men and killing one of them. For the Iraqi officer, it was quite a sight, and a jolt from what had been a rather routine evening. Now he saw the helicopter hovering overhead, the tactical unit in their large command bus and enough crime scene tape to reach the Middle East.

Reports are still being compiled but it appears plainclothes officers were either in the area questioning people about a shooting a couple days earlier or had responded to reports of a man walking around with a gun. Police said one gunman opened fire, striking the officer, a veteran of the Iraq War, and other officers returned fire. One man fell on the porch of a rowhouse and later died; the other ran inside and was later taken to Sinai Hospital.

The officer was struck in the right arm and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where just hours after being sworn in as new mayor, Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake joined Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to address the media.

"We're not going to back down," she said. "Our citizens deserve to live in safe neighborhoods."

Visiting a wounded police officer is never easy for a mayor, or anyone else, and Rawlings-Blake had to do it on her first day on the job. And she had some tough words. Meanwhile, the Iraqis got a taste of violence in an American city.