Man shot in Berlin for threatening police

A German man was shot in the leg by police after threatening an officer outside a hospital in Berlin, authorities say.

Police were responding to a different incident at the Urban Hospital in the city's Kreuzberg district shortly after on Thursday afternoon when the 27-year-old man ran up and pointed a firearm at them, an official said.

"The officers fired one shot at the man," police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf told reporters. "He was injured in the leg and immediately taken into the hospital and operated on."

Neuendorf said the man's injuries weren't life-threatening and the officers weren't injured.

The man, whose identity wasn't released, didn't say anything to police and his motives were still unclear, Neuendorf said. The man was known to police in connection with a previous weapons offence.

A small area outside the hospital was cordoned off by police, but the hospital itself remained open.