DETROIT --- A price war between two neighboring gas station owners in Detroit escalated into violence last week when a man shot and killed another outside one of the stations, police told ABC News. Police were originally called to deal with an assault involving a bat and a pipe outside a local Marathon gas station. But when they arrived, one of the gas station owners had been shot, a Detroit police spokesman told ABC News. The man was transported to a local hospital but was pronounced deal on arrival. The alleged shooter was taken into police custody. According to ABC News' Detroit affiliate, the trouble started when two employees of a Marathon station began manually changing the gas prices on their station's board to $2.93 for regular unleaded --- three cents less than the neighboring BP competitor. The owner of the BP station and one of his employees spotted them making the change and walked over to the Marathon station. Someone reportedly brandished a bat before the Marathon station owner went inside to retrieve a gun and allegedly shot the BP station owner multiple times. While police conducted their investigation of the crime scene, employees of the BP station reportedly raised the price for its regular unleaded gas from $2.96 to $3.09. The two station owners have been engaged in an aggressive price war for some time, witnesses told ABC News.