Man shot dead by Canberra police

File photo / Thinkstock

AUSTRALIA - A crime scene has been established in Canberra's south where a man was shot dead by police earlier this morning.

Police responding to a report of disturbance arrived at the house shortly before 5am.

They spent the next 40 minutes negotiating with a 27-year-old man to come out of the home.

Commander Bruce Hill says he emerged about 40 minutes later, armed with a kitchen knife and meat cleaver.

"He then progressively made aggressive moves towards the police, all the way down the road," he said.

"Approximately 300 metres down the road he made an aggressive lunge towards police, to my understanding, and that's when [a police officer] discharged his firearm," he said.

A single shot was fired and the man died at the scene.

Commander Hill says police are investigating the incident.

"I've spoken to all six officers. As you will appreciate this is a extremely tragic situation, they are very, very upset, very emotionally distraught by it and we're giving every support to those police officers," he said.

A neighbour has described hearing the gunshot.

"We normally rise about 6:00 in the morning but just before that we heard a bit of a commotion, which is not unusual around here, then a very loud bang. It's obviously a gun shot," they said.

"I've never seen this happen before in my life, so I was totally shocked and very, very shocked of what's happened here today in our neighbourhood."

It is the second police shooting in Canberra in less than three weeks.

- ABC NEWS