An unidentified man was shot to death by police at a gas station in Burnaby overnight following a stolen car chase that began in Coquitlam.

The attendant at the Mohawk station at Canada Way and Edmonds told CBC News a black car was boxed in by police, and the driver tried to ram one of their cars. The attendant then ducked away from the window because he thought something bad was about to happen.

Police investigators examine the scene at the Mohawk station at Canada Way and Edmonds in Burnaby, B.C.
(CBC)

The RCMP say the stolen car was first noticed by a Coquitlam Mountie near Lougheed and the Barnett Highway — but the driver refused to pull over.

The RCMP say they tracked the man and his female passenger from the air with a helicopter as the car went through New Westminster into Burnaby, where officers from the Burnaby RCMP and the New Westminster Police cornered the pair at the Mohawk station.

Police say the officers shot the man after he got out of the car and pulled a gun.

Neighbour Leanne Casey says she heard the gunfire from three blocks away.

"I was in my bathroom dying my hair and I heard a crack, crack, then crack, crack, crack."

Members of the Lower Mainland's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team are on the scene bagging evidence and surveying the scene. The Burnaby RCMP say that team will conduct an independent investigation of the shooting.