A man has died after accidentally shooting himself when a bullet bounced off a car as he tried to gun someone down in a busy south London street, witnesses have claimed.

Police responded to reports of suspicious activity in Sydenham Road at 3.45pm on Sunday, with firearms officers being summoned after shots were heard.

Despite the efforts of paramedics at the scene, the man -who was found with gunshot wounds - died at the scene just five minutes later at 3.50pm.

A 56-year-old woman living on nearby Venner Road said: 'He came to shoot someone else, but he ended up shooting himself.

A forensic tent set up on Venner Road after a man was shot dead. The car on the left has a broken window, with one witness claiming the bullet struck the window, bounced off and hit him

A man in his 20s died after the incident on Sydenham Road today. Police remain at the cordon this evening

This graph shows how knife and weapon offences are now the highest they have been in a 10 year period

Forensics in the police cordon in Sydenham Road, south-east London, after a man in his twenties was found with gunshot wounds and died at the scene on Sunday afternoon

'The bullet bounced off a car window. You can see on the car window where the bullet bounced off it.

'After it happened, the boy he came to shoot stood there filming him.'

She said she had been stuck inside the police cordon for three hours since the shooting.

'He's been there for three hours covered by a sheet. No mum, no dad. It's really sad,' she said.

She said she had lived in Sydenham for 25 years and there had been very few incidents.

'It's a nice little area this. It's up and coming,' she said.

Pictures from the scene show a large cordon is place as on the busy south-east London street.

Police remain at the scene and are investigating.

Police and forensics discuss the incident that took place earlier today in Sydenham, Lewisham

In response to the incident, Ellie Reeves, Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, tweeted: 'Shocked and saddened to learn of the fatal shooting in Sydenham this afternoon.

'My thoughts are with the victim and their family. This violence has no place in our community.'

A shopkeeper on the high street also said that he and his colleague had also heard the victim had accidentally shot himself.

'A group of guys were sitting in a car by the [Lloyds] bank and a big guy came up to them with a shotgun.

'They all got out of the car and ran so the guy decided to damage the car with the back of the gun.

'As he was hitting the windows the gun went off and he shot himself - that's what we've been told.'

One resident in a flat overlooking the junction between Sydenham Road and Venner Road said she had heard the gunshot.

'It took almost three hours for the police to cover the body up, it's disgusting,' she said.

This latest incident comes after a string of teenage stabbings in recent weeks.

Police and ambulance crews at the scene on Syndenham Road today after a man is killed

On Thursday, Perry Jordan Brammer, 15, died after suffering multiple stab wounds during an attack in broad daylight the week before.

A 21-year-old man was arrested in the early hours of Friday morning on suspicion of murder after the attack in Tottenham on August 30.

A second man, aged 25, was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender and both remain in custody in a north London police station.

The same week, Santino Angelo Dymiter, 18, was fatally stabbed in an attack in Chadd Green on August 26.

Amrou Greenidge, also 18, died after being deliberately rammed off his bike by a car in Fulham before being attacked as he lay in the street.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged to 'come down hard on crime' and wants to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: 'I want to see knives taken off our streets. We have done it before, more than ten years ago, when London faced an identical spate of knife crime and violence at the beginning of my first term as Mayor. We can do it again.

'I want to drive down the murder rate and youth violence. With the help of my then Deputy Mayor, Kit Malthouse, we did it before. Kit is now Policing Minister, and we will do it again.

'I want us to close down the evil 'county lines' drugs gangs that have done so much to spread knife and gun crime to hitherto innocent towns and communities, and I want the key gang members arrested and put away. We did it before and we can do it again.'

Anyone with any information is urged to call police on 101 or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.