An investigation is under way after a man was shot and killed by police during a pre-planned operation on the M62 motorway in Huddersfield.
Police said the incident was not terrorism-related, adding that there had been five arrests, three at the scene and two in a “related stop” of another vehicle in Bradford.
Witnesses described an “absolute hive of police activity” as armed officers swooped on a car near junction 24 of the busy motorway at about 6pm on Monday.
A West Yorkshire police spokesman said those arrested needed hospital treatment for injuries “not related to firearm discharge”.
The force said it was “fully co-operating” with the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has launched an investigation into the shooting. The dead man’s identity has not yet been released.
Pictures from the scene appeared to show a bullet-ridden silver Audi that had been boxed in by a silver Mercedes E-class on the junction 24 slip road. The Audi appeared to have three distinct gunshot marks on the driver’s side of its windscreen.
Gemma Wilson, a local Conservative councillor who was in the area at the time, said five or six police cars appeared to be acting as a “barricade” on Ainley Top roundabout off the M62.
“I was coming back at 6.15pm from the cinema with the kids and you could hear the police cars’ sirens as you approached,” she told the Guardian yesterday.
“The police cars on the roundabout seemed to be being used as a barricade but I’m not sure. There were about five or six police cars on Ainley Top roundabout. There seemed to be some other unmarked cars as well, parked up, but I’m not sure whether they were involved in the operation or not. It was an absolute hive of police activity.”
People initially believed the incident was a lorry or bus crash, Wilson said, but added: “It didn’t look like a normal car crash. We just had a gut feeling that something was wrong,” she added.
“An hour later I walked to the supermarket and the traffic was absolutely awful, you could see a sea of blue flashing lights.”
Rahul Tandon, from Halifax, told BBC Radio Leeds he was stopped by police on the exit slip road of junction 24 as the incident happened. “As we pulled off the motorway we could see a lot of police vehicles, a lot of flashing lights,” he said. “We were basically the first car that was stopped by police and we just waited and waited.
“Over the next 10 to 15 minutes there was frenetic activity as more and more police vehicles arrived. At about 6.15pm to 6.20pm policemen were running up the slope to an ambulance and beckoning them to come quickly.”
The incident was the fifth fatal police shooting in England and Wales in the past nine months and the first involving West Yorkshire police since December 2010.
A spokesman for West Yorkshire police said: “Around 6pm on Monday, during a pre-planned policing operation near to the M62 in Huddersfield a police firearm was discharged and a man has died.
“The slip roads east and westbound at junction 24 of the M62 remain closed. An immediate referral has been made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, who are in attendance in West Yorkshire and West Yorkshire police are fully co-operating with their investigation.”