DAVID McAtee, the chef who was shot and killed by National Guard troops in Kentucky on Monday, fired a gun first, police officers claim.

Louisville Metro Police officers released video footage they say shows the popular barbecue chef and local "community pillar" shooting at law enforcement before they fatally opened fire.

"Mr McAtee appears to fire at the officers and they take cover and return fire, but without audio…that is yet to be determined," said Major Paul Humphrey at a LMPD press conference.

Louisville officers and the National Guard were sent to a parking lot to break up a crowd at around 12.45am, according to a police statement.

The statement adds the officers were "shot at" while trying to clear the area and returned fire, leaving one person – McAtee – dead.

The video, which contains footage from inside McAtee's YaYa BBQ Shack as well as some from an adjacent business showing the parking lot, appears to show the moments the shooting occurred.

The footage from inside the restaurant shows a group of people coming and going from a back door that seems to lead into an alleyway.

Then, a number of people run in, before a man, presumed to be McAtee, enters and falls to the ground.

The footage from the adjacent store shows the back yard of the Shack, and several people can be seen sitting under a canopy, being served by someone believed to be McAtee.

A group of officers cross the road towards the seating area, and the group runs into the doorway which appears to lead to the back of the restaurant.

One officer appears to be holding a gun and pointing it towards the retreating group.

Smoke is then seen coming from the direction of the doorway leading to the shack, and an object is dropped on the ground.

More smoke can then be seen coming from the direction of the officers.

Louisville Police Department Chief Steve Conrad was fired on Monday afternoon after it was revealed that police officers didn't record body camera footage of the deadly shooting of McAtee.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer canned Conrad a month before he was set to retire after leading the department for eight years, according to WLKY.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the "LMPD and the Kentucky National Guard returned fire resulting in death," and that he had asked the Kentucky State Police to independently investigate the shooting.

"This type of institutional failure will not be tolerated," Fischer said.

Officers and the National Guard were called to Dino's Food Mart at around 12am, an hour after a curfew was imposed on the city following several nights of protests against the fatal shooting of a nurse by cops.

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old frontline medic who was shot dead at her home in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13.

Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was shot eight times by police in March as they looked for a suspect that they had "already arrested".

Conrad addressed the recent protests during a press conference on Monday.

"I think it's very, very clear that people do not trust the police," he said, according to WLKY. "That is an issue that we're going to have to work on and work through for a long time."

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