TORONTO -- A man is dead after he was shot during a confrontation with police at an apartment building in downtown Toronto early on Tuesday morning.

Paramedics said they were called to a Toronto Community Housing building at 291 George Street, north of Dundas Street East, at 3:50 a.m. for a report of a man with a severe injury to his chest.

He was rushed to hospital in life-threatening condition.

The Special Investigations Unit later said that police were called to building at 3:30 a.m., where they went to the third floor of building and confronted a 45-year-old man.

A source tells CP24 that heavily-armed emergency task force officers were the ones that confronted the man and fired on him.

The SIU says two officers fired at the man.

He was pronounced dead in hospital at 4:17 a.m., the SIU said.

Police said they were in the building as part of a missing person investigation when they learned of the possibility that someone inside may have had a gun.

Interim Toronto police Chief James Ramer told CP24 that officers are “simultaneously conducting a homicide investigation as a result of a person who was reported missing earlier,” regarding what transpired at the building, but he declined to elaborate.

“We were here and there was an interaction and as a result the SIU has invoked their mandate,” Ramer said.

In a news release issued late Tuesday afternoon, police said that officers had attended the building as part of their “inquiries into a missing woman.”

Police said that “investigators now have reason to believe a person has died under suspicious circumstance,” though it is not clear whether that person is the missing woman that police were looking for.

They are asking anyone who may have been in the building or in the area between Friday and Sunday to contact investigators if they heard or saw anything suspicious.

“A body has not yet been located and investigators continue to carry out inquiries to establish the full circumstances,” the news release notes.

The SIU is called to investigate any incident involving police and a member of the public that results in death, serious injury or an allegation of sexual assault.

They are asking witnesses to contact them at 1-800-787-8529.