Two gunmen shot a security officer outside a “cartoon contest” depicting the prophet Muhammad near Dallas and were then shot and killed by police, authorities said late Sunday night.

Garland police spokesman Joe Harn told The Washington Post that the shooting occurred about 7 p.m. Sunday night (8 p.m. Eastern Time) outside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, some 20 miles northeast of Dallas, when two armed men pulled up in a car in front of the event center and both started shooting at a Garland Independent School District security officer. In response, Garland police opened fire on the two gunmen, he said.

Both gunmen were killed, Harn said. Their names have not yet been released. The security officer who was shot was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The officer has been treated and released, he said.

The incident occurred outside the Curtis Culwell Center during a contest hosted by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative, which promised to award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad, according to the Associated Press. Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an outspoken critic against radical Islam, was the keynote speaker at the event. Just before the shooting, he and Pamela Geller presented a check to contest’s winner, Bosch Fawstin, according to the Daily Caller.

The competition had been a point of contention in the community since Garland Independent School District agreed to rent out the event center to the group, which is considered an anti-Muslim “hate group” by the [extremist] Southern Poverty Law Center. (Read more from “Gunmen Shot Dead in Texas After Opening Fire Outside Prophet Muhammad ‘Cartoon’ Show” HERE)

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Photo Credit: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record/AP Photo

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were “simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class,” New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.

The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.

A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The names of the shooting victims have not been released.

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