A Bellevue police officer shot and killed 61-year old man outside a Bellevue strip mall in the 12200 block of Northeast 8th Street around 11 p.m. Tuesday.

Officers responded to a disturbance call from an apartment complex several blocks away. The caller reported a man screaming threats and trying to gain entry into an apartment.

Police contacted the man while he was walking near the Lucky Market at Northeast 8th and 120th Avenue Northeast. The man proceeded to charge the officer with a knife in hand and the officer shot and killed him, police said.

“I heard gunfire, and after that the police officers surrounded (the area) and the man was on the ground,” said a Lucky Market clerk who was working when the incident took place. “It’s my first time hearing a gun. It sounded like a firecracker.”

After the man had been shot, authorities performed CPR, but the man died on the scene.

The officer, a six-year veteran with the department, was not injured. He has been placed on routine administrative leave for at least three days.

Eyewitnesses to the incident saw the man’s attempts to attack the officer with a knife, police said.

The dead man’s identity is expected to be released later by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The clerk, who asked to remain anonymous, said she got caught up talking with her daughter and stayed in the store past its usual closing time.

“It’s nice that we were chatting and we didn’t get out until late,” she said. “I was imagining I would have been face-to-face with this man. What if he had pulled a knife on me and my daughter?”