A gunman died of his wounds after a shootout with police in the Reykjavík suburb of Árbær this morning.
Archive photo: Páll Stefánsson/Iceland Review.
Early this morning news appeared on mbl.is that an armed man in his fifties had been making threats to his neighbors and that police had started to move people from the apartment building where he resided.
After 5 am the man started to fire shots out of a window. Police returned fire. According to eye witnesses, some sort of smoke bomb was thrown into the apartment through a broken window.
According to Haraldur Jóhannessen, National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, and Stefán Eiríksson, Chief of the Reykjavík Police, policemen were wounded in the operation, but not seriously. At around 6 am, police entered the apartment of the gunman.
The police eventually managed to control the situation. The man, who was shot in the process, was taken out in a stretcher and brought to the hospital where he was pronounced dead before 10 am. The case will be investigated by the state prosecutor.
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