Police watchdog says it led media to believe shots were exchanged but Duggan was carrying gun that was never used

The police watchdog investigating the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked the first bout of rioting in London on Saturday, has said it may have "inadvertently" misled journalists into believing the Tottenham man had fired at police.

Responding to inquiries from the Guardian, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said in a statement: "It seems possible that we may have verbally led journalists to believe that shots were exchanged".

Duggan, 29, was armed with a loaded handgun when he was shot dead by police after the minicab he was in was stopped during a planned operation to arrest him.

Investigators have established that two shots were fired by one CO19 firearms officer who was supporting Trident officers during the operation.

A postmortem concluded that Duggan was killed by a single gun shot to the chest. He also received a second gunshot wound to his right arm in the shooting at around 6.15pm in Tottenham Hale on 4 August.

A police officer was also injured after a bullet – presumably from a ricochet – lodged in his radio.

The alleged failure by the IPCC to provide Duggan's family and the local community with reliable information in the aftermath of his death was part of the reason the relatives protested outside the police station on Saturday.

The peaceful demonstration later descended into rioting and looting that, within days, had inspired "copycat" disorder across England.

Duggan's family and friends have said that if he was carrying a loaded weapon, they did not believe he would have fired at police.

The firearms officer who shot Duggan has said that he never claimed he was shot at and is understood to be upset that the family might have been misled into believing this. Investigations are ongoing into the fatal shooting. The IPCC is seeking witnesses to the incident as it attempts to piece together what happened.

Duggan was killed during an operation by Trident, which investigates gun crime. They had called in support from a specialist firearms team as a result of intelligence they had received.

The intention was to arrest Duggan, and police sources have said firearms officers were involved because of the perceived danger of the operation.

The IPCC's first statement about Duggan's death, issued four hours after he was pronounced dead, made no reference to shots fired at police.

However, at least one spokesman from the watchdog appears to have misinformed journalists, leading to reports that Duggan was killed by police after "firing first".

The Evening Standard said Duggan had been involved in a "shootout", adding that a "spokesman for the [IPCC] said it appeared the officer was shot first before police returned fire".

The Mirror quoted an IPCC spokesman saying: "We do not know the order the shots were fired. We understand the officer was shot first, then the male."

An article in the Independent made a similar claim. It reported: "It is understood that the officer was shot first, but this is not known for certain, an IPCC spokesperson said."

The IPCC statement said: "Analysis of media coverage and queries raised on Twitter have alerted to us to the possibility that we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists when responding to very early media queries following the shooting of Mark Duggan by MPS officers on the evening of 4 August."

Conceding it was possible it had issued information suggesting shots were exchanged, the IPCC added: "This was consistent with early information we received that an officer had been shot and taken to hospital. Any reference to an exchange of shots was not correct and did not feature in any of our formal statements, although an officer was taken to hospital after the incident."