LEWISTON – Police rushed to their own compound Thursday night after a group of people were shot with AirSoft guns and a brawl erupted in the parking lot.

Four men were arrested after two teenagers were shot in the face during a shooting spree that began at about 6 p.m.

Police said the confrontation escalated when one of the teens who was shot hurled his skateboard through a vehicle window as the shooters drove past.

Police seized several AirSoft guns, including an automatic M-16 replica, two pump rifles and several handguns. They also found a canister of 10,000 AirSoft rounds inside the car used by the group of suspects.

Arrested and jailed on charges of reckless conduct were Daniel Bussiere and Michael Minson, both 19, of Auburn; Frank Demers, 20, of New Gloucester, and his brother Jeffrey Demers, 18, also of New Gloucester.

Frank Demers was charged additionally with disorderly conduct after police said he ran past a line of officers while trying to get to one of the teens who had been shot minutes earlier.

Police said the drama began when a car full of people was reported driving along the edge of Kennedy Park firing the hard, plastic projectiles at people.

The group then turned their attention to more than a half dozen people in and around the skateboard park across the street from the police station. It was in that area that one teen was struck in the face and another was struck in the head by one of the pellets.

“They kept driving by and they kept on shooting,” said police officer Derek St. Laurent, one of the first officers at the scene.

Police said the group of suspects also flung handfuls of loose pellets into the skateboard park to cause the teens there to loose control of their boards.

Shortly after the two victims were shot, one of them ran toward the road and waited until the same vehicle drove by again. He threw his skateboard at the car, shattering a rear window, police said.

“The group in the car had been antagonizing the kids and it escalated very quickly,” police Sgt. Jeff Parshall said.

St. Laurent was inside the police station taking a statement from one of the victims when another person ran inside and reported a brawl outside. Police said the four suspects had stopped their car when the window was broken and they confronted more than half a dozen skateboarders and others.

“It was a big melee out there pretty much in the police compound,” St. Laurent said.

When police radioed that there was a fight in the compound, several officers ran outside while others drove to the scene in cruisers. The guns were found when police searched the vehicle that had been occupied by the four suspects, Parshall said.

While most of the AirSoft guns contained orange tips to identify them as other than real firearms, one resembling a 9 mm handgun did not.

Police said they believe others might have been struck by the plastic projectiles as the suspects opened fire into Kennedy Park.

Police said the shooting spree Thursday night was particularly troublesome because of the large number of families with children out to see the downtown Christmas celebration. An estimated 300 people, most of them children, were attending the show, which traveled along a route near where the shootings occurred.

AirSoft guns have been the subject of controversy recently in the Twin Cities and around the country. In October, four Lewiston High School students were expelled for bringing the weapons to school.

Around the country, hospital administrators say injuries related to the weapons are on the rise. AirSoft guns have been used in robberies and police have complained that the guns look so real, it’s hard to determine if a suspect is armed with a real firearm or an AirSoft.

Minson, Bussiere and the Demers brothers remained at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn later Thursday night. They were expected to be arraigned on Friday.