Police in Bochum fatally shot a 74-year-old man on Sunday in a rare instance where law enforcement officers discharged their firearms.

Police were called to an apartment building on the southern side of the city at 7:50 p.m. local time (1850 UTC), a spokesman for the Bochum police told DW, but he said the original reason police were called to the scene is not yet known.

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The man pulled out an object resembling a weapon as police attempted to identify him, the spokesman said. Police then fired several shots and the man was fatally wounded. Attempts to revive the man were unsuccessful.

An official statement from Bochum police is expected on Monday.

It is highly unusual for law enforcement officers to use their firearms in Germany and police killings are a rare occurrence. According to the German Police Academy in Münster, police fatally shot 14 people and injured 39 nationwide in 2017. That was an increase from the previous two years, when there were 11 killed and 28 injured by police in 2016 and 10 killed and 22 injured in 2015.