LAS VEGAS – Bullets were flying from a black Range Rover at a gray Maserati as the vehicles raced toward a red light on the Las Vegas Strip.

Beneath the neon lights, police say, the Maserati ran the red light at one of the Strip’s busiest intersections and smashed into a taxi that exploded into flames early Thursday, killing the two people inside.

Three more cars and a utility truck collided at the crossroads home to Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Bally’s, leaving at least six more people injured as the Range Rover sped off in the pre-dawn darkness.

The Maserati driver was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The dramatic scene that more than one tourist compared to something out of a violent action movie set off a frantic search for the occupants of the Range Rover and marked the latest violent episode on the Strip since the beginning of the year.

Two people were critically wounded in a shooting at a parking garage on Feb. 6, and a tourist was stabbed last Saturday in an elevator at The Hotel at Mandalay Bay.

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Thursday’s attack was sparked by an argument in the valet area of the nearby Aria hotel-casino.

“What happened will not be tolerated,” Gillespie said. He promised the shooters would be “found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Police said the driver and passenger in the taxi were killed. The male driver of the Maserati also died, and his passenger was shot.

Police did not release their names, citing the ongoing investigation.

The area near the scene has been the site of high-profile violence in the past.

Rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by in 1996 about a block away under similar circumstances, as assailants opened fire on his luxury sedan from a vehicle on Flamingo Road. The killing has never been solved.