Police in Iceland shoot a criminal dead for the first time and immediately apologise to the man's family By Anna Edwards A gunman has become the first person to be killed by a police officer in Iceland's history. Immediately after shooting the man dead in an apartment in Reykjavik, officers apologised to the man's family saying they had tried to subdue him peacefully. However he kept firing at them with a shotgun from inside his flat in the Arbaer suburb early yesterday morning. Officers were called to an apartment in the Reykjavik suburb when a man fired a shotgun from inside the flat A police officer enters a house where a man was shot dead by police. It was the first-ever armed police operation, officials said Two policemen, who were not armed, were shot at when trying to enter the gunman's apartment. Witnesses told local media that a smoke bomb was thrown into the apartment through a broken window in efforts to subdue the man. A special armed unit then entered and fired at the man, who was rushed to the hospital, where he died. No one else has been injured. Iceland, which has a tiny population of around 320,000, has a low crime rate and gun violence is extremely rare and regular police officers do not carry firearms. Haraldur Johannessen, National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, said Monday's incident was unprecedented. He said: 'The police regret this incident and wishes to extend its condolences to the man's family,' Reykjavik Metropolitan Police Commissioner Stefan Eiriksson told a press conference, according to local media website Visir said: 'All available members of the police force were deployed, and they tried to subdue him, but it was not successful. The man began to shoot out the window of the apartment and it was decided to take action. The motives of the man, who has not been named, are unclear. The incident was 'without precedent' in Iceland's history, national police chief Haraldur Johannessen said A special armed unit then entered and fired at the man, who was rushed to the hospital, where he died According to RUV, Iceland's national television station, the gunman was a man in his 50s and had been making threats to his neighbours. Shotguns are legal for hunting in Iceland and much of the population believes that the country rarely sees gun violence in part because handguns are banned. Iceland has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world. GunPolicy.org estimates there are approximately 90,000 guns in the country - in a country with a population just over 320,000 people. But there are strict tests involved in acquiring a gun. Steps to gun ownership include a medical examination and a written test. Police are unarmed apart from a specially trained squad who carry firearms. There is also little class-A drug usage in the nation, which some believe are a factor in the absence of misuse of firearms.