Police officers have described the last moments of Sydney woman Courtney Topic's life, saying she turned away from capsicum spray, raised the knife she was holding, and ran directly at a police officer, before being shot dead outside a Hungry Jack's restaurant in 2015.
Topic was 22 when she was killed on the morning of February 10, 2015, on a grassy patch by a busy intersection outside Hoxton Park Hungry Jack's in Western Sydney.
In the hour before her death, several witnesses reported seeing her behaving strangely with a 30cm-long kitchen knife, including pointing it towards her stomach and using it to brush aside her hair.
The death is now the subject of a coronial inquest before Magistrate Liz Ryan at the NSW Coroner's Court.
On Thursday afternoon, the court released footage of Topic's final moments, as well as hearing testimony from several police officers who arrived at the scene just before she was killed.
Footage taken by a civilian witness of Courtney Topic's final moments.
Senior constable Paul Falzon arrived at Hungry Jack's as three other officers –constable Ethan Tesoriero (who fired the fatal shot), probationary constable Angela Tyson and senior constable Darren Jones – were trying to subdue Topic on the grass.
Falzon told the court he saw Topic standing in front of the police holding "a large carving knife or kitchen knife". He watched Jones deploy capsicum spray in her direction.
“Ms Topic turned her head to the left and her hair pretty much got the spray," Falzon said. "She’s quickly looked at [Tesoriero] and ran towards him."
Sergeant Glenn Sadler, who arrived around the same time, told the court Topic raised the knife to just below shoulder height and pointed it at Tesoriero before running towards him: "She intentionally ran forward in a direct line to [Tesoriero]."
Tesoriero took steps back and to the right before firing his gun at Topic, who "stopped in her tracks immediately", Sadler said.
"I think she might have taken a step to the left. I saw her hunch to a position more to her right side. Her left hand fell to the ground ... then seconds later she slumped to the ground."
On Monday, the inquest heard that prior to the shot being fired Tyson had attempted to use her taser on Topic but the weapon was defective.
After Topic fell, officers including Falzon and senior constable Stephen McEvoy tried to give her first aid, the inquest heard.
"After she fell, you came to her assistance?" Sophia Beckett, acting for the Topic family, asked Falzon. "You held her head?"
"Yes," he said.
"The family would like to thank you for your assistance," Beckett said, as Courtney's mother Leesa Topic wept in the seats behind her.
Constable Sanja Djuric told the inquest she had been an officer for 21 months at the time she witnessed Topic’s death. She comforted Tesoriero after he fired his gun.
“Did he appear to you to be extremely distressed?” asked counsel assisting the coroner, Gerard Craddock SC.
“He did seem in shock,” Djuric replied.
The inquest will hear from a psychiatrist who believes Topic may have been suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia and in a psychotic state at the time of her death.
Falzon told the inquest he was an accredited Mental Health Intervention Team officer and that he had thought Topic might have mental health issues when he heard a radio broadcast mentioning she had pointed the knife towards her stomach.
"We tried to attend as quickly as we could," he told the court.
On Wednesday, civilian witnesses to the shooting described what they saw of the last few moments of Topic's life.
Robert Duncan was turning past the Hungry Jack's when he saw the events unfolding and pulled over to watch.
He said Topic "looked like a zombie" as police approached and did not give any indication that she could see police or hear their instructions.
"She was there but she didn't look like she was actually there," he said.
Other witnesses told the inquest that police had been shouting at Topic to put the knife down.
In his opening statement on Monday, Craddock told the court Topic's mental state was a crucial factor in assessing how and why she died.
"Her social cognition deficits and internal preoccupations likely resulted in her inability to respond as may have been expected to the police requests," he said.
The court also heard recordings of police radio messages about Topic on the day she died.
An initial message, broadcast after a truck driver saw Topic walking along the side of the road with the knife and called police, described Topic as “distressed” and noted the caller had been concerned Topic would hurt herself.
“Talking to herself, apparently she hit herself in the head with one hand and in the other hand in possession of a knife,” the police dispatch said.
A later radio message told officers Topic was near Hungry Jack’s on Cowpasture Road and "she’s still got that large kitchen knife she’s waving around".