Police shot dead an armed man in Helsinki

The Finnish Police shot dead a man on Saturday at Helsinki's district of Käpylä.

According to the information provided by the Police, the event happened after 1:30 pm, when Police was reported about loud noises and a possible fight inside of a private apartment in Kullervonkatu.

A police patrol went to the place and entered the dwelling. At the moment when the agents arrived, two women fled from the flat and a man armed with a gun remained inside, "behaving threateningly towards the police".

The police release says the officers in the scene tried first to stop the man by using a paralyzing gun, but it did not work. "In order to counter the threat, another member of the police patrol had to shoot at the man with two shots. The subject died in the apartment", explains the official note.

The police are investigating the identity of the two women who were in the apartment at the time the officers arrived. At the moment they have disappeared. So far, the police have no exact information about what happened inside of the dwelling either.

After the event, police experts went into the apartment to undergo a technical and tactical investigation.

Ninth shooting since 2000

According to data published by the Finnish broadcasting network (Yle), the fatal shooting on Saturday is the ninth stemming from on-duty-arms use by Finnish police since the year 2000. 

Each year, Finnish police investigate more than 1,000 incidents that involve some kind of use of force while on duty. Of this number, about 80 involve the use of a weapon.

Only a small percentage of these total cases involve a firearm being fired. Most of the cases involve only removing a weapon from the holster in order to give a warning.

In Finland, as in most European countries, police can only use a firearm to stop activities that pose an immediate and serious danger to another person's life or health, and this only after exhausting all other options.