Witnesses described the chaos that unfolded at Sylvia Park yesterday as a man was fatally shot by police during an incident outside the mall in Auckland’s Mt Wellington.

Multiple gunshots were heard as part of the mall went into lockdown about 3pm.

A significant amount of police and ambulance staff were outside the mall.

One shopper told the Herald they saw a man approaching the shopping centre with what appeared to be a firearm.

“I couldn’t see him after that, but I heard three gunshots,” he said.

A witness told Newstalk ZB: “It was five or six shots ... I thought that’s not a car backfiring.

“I heard the sirens going and saw half a dozen police cars.”

He said he went to the train platform to warn people.

“I said to everyone, ‘there’s an active shooter at the mall so I wouldn’t go over there if I were you’.

”I was stopping people going in there, I needed a new pair of shoes, but not that desperately.”

Another witness, Nick, told Newstalk ZB he was driving through the complex when he saw “cops everywhere”.

”There appeared to be a hatchback car that looked like it had crashed into the middle island. I didn’t know if that had anything to do with the active shooter.

“There were millions of police everywhere, lots of guns.”