The renowned anti-Islam journalist and scholar Lars Hedegaard reportedly survived an assassination attempt outside his home on Pelargonieviej in Frederiksberg this morning.

According to Ritzau, the assailant fled when his gun jammed after firing the first shot at around 11:20.

“A man shot at the victim but he missed and the bullet went over his head,” police commissioner Lars-Christian Borg told Ritzau. “When he tried to fire again, the pistol clicked and the assailant ran away.”

While Borg would not confirm the identity of the assassin’s target, a neighbour of Hedegaard’s told Politiken newspaper that he was the target.

“He told me that a man had approached him with a package and when he went to take it the man fired at him,” the neighbour told Politiken.

After first sealing off Hedegaard’s street, police have now also cordoned off Copenhagen Zoo after two men wearing ski masks were seen jumping over the wall to the zoo into the hippopotamus enclosure.

Berlingske newspaper reports that witnesses reported hearing what sounded like a gunshot at around 13:50.

Police say the man that fired the shot was wearing a red coat, is around 30 years of age and has dark skin and thick, dark hair.

Hedegaard was charged with racism after he made a series of critical statements about Islam and Muslims that included comparing Islam to Nazism and the claim that Muslims rape their own children. He was eventually cleared by the High Court in 2011.

Witnesses to the shooting incident are asked to call 114.