WASHINGTON - Three police officers were killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call at a home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Saturday, officials said.

Two officers were called to a home in the western Pennsylvania city Saturday morning and were shot when they approached the door. A third officer, who arrived to back up the officers, was also shot and killed.

Police chief Nathan Harper said in a televised press conference that a man barricaded in the home continued to shoot at police officers from the elite SWAT team responded to the shooting. Residents of neighbouring homes were evacuated.

A total of 100 rounds were exchanged between the police and the suspect, Richard Poplowski, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, a long rifle and a pistol, Harper said.

Two other police officers and Poplowski were injured in the incident. The suspect was in police custody.

The shooting was the latest in a string of multiple shootings in the US in recent weeks. On Friday, a Vietnamese immigrant killed 13 people and himself in an attack at a community centre in Binghamton, New York. Two weeks ago, four police were killed in Oakland, California, in what was the deadliest day for law enforcement officers since the terrorist attacks of Sep 11, 2001.