A man was shot dead by police in Enfield, North London, on Sunday night, in the first fatal shooting by British police this year.

James Fox, 43, was identified as the man shot outside a sixth floor flat in a former local authority building.

Fox was pronounced dead at the scene and the incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission for investigation (IPCC).

Police arrived at the scene after reports that a man with a gun was threatening to shoot someone.

The shooting represents the first of its kind in 2015 in the UK.

Cindy Butts, the IPCC commissioner, said:

Fatal police shootings are rare but require thorough independent scrutiny when they do occur. Our investigators are gathering all of the evidence to understand the full circumstances of what happened.

Meanwhile, The Guardian’s database on people killed by police in the US, ‘The Counted’, reports that 680 people have been fatally shot so far this year by law enforcement officers.