Image: Ville Tapio / Yle

Police shot a man dead in the Helsinki district of Käpylä on Saturday after responding to a 12:30pm call reporting loud fighting in a private residence.

Two women fled from the flat when the patrol arrived on the scene. The remaining man threatened the two officers with a weapon and acted very aggressively.

After first trying to subdue the assailant with a stun gun, one of the two officers fired two shots towards the man. He died in the flat.

The two women that ran out of the apartment have not been located and so police have no information about what had happened in the dwelling before the patrol arrived. A technical and tactical investigation is now underway at the location.

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.

The fatal shooting on Saturday is the ninth stemming from on-duty arms use by Finnish police since the year 2000.

Finnish laws state that 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 all other options have been exhausted.