To get by them, don't go through the door they are right behind, but stay outside that door and look left. There is a crate there, go jump on it and jump straight up to the landing. You can go in the side door where there is nobody else.......yet!
I've cleared the chests/barrels on that level and the next one up. Found some good weapons in there.


ASUS M3N72-D
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Brisbane @ 3GHz
4 Gigs DDR2 PC6400 Dual Ch. Corsair
ASUS GeForce 9800GT 512MB x2 SLI
Win7 64bit or XP Pro x64