Tactical officers did not wear body cameras when they fatally shot a mentally ill man at the end of nine-hour police stand-off, an inquest has been told.
Todd McKenzie, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot three times after the siege on the NSW mid-north coast in 2019 when police were called to a Taree property over concerns for his welfare.
The Taree court was told Mr McKenzie, 40, had been suffering from a mental health episode that caused him to have paranoid delusions about people entering his home.
He picked up a knife and walked around the neighbourhood before neighbours called police to conduct a welfare check.
The inquest has previously viewed bodycam footage from the first-response, general duties officers which showed Senior Constable Glenn Larrain mocking Mr McKenzie and challenging him to a fight.
However, the tactical police units who stormed Mr McKenzie's home and shot him did not wear body cameras.
Under previous questioning, one of the senior constables involved said, "obviously the tactical guys wanted all body-worn switched off".
Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame asked one of the tactical officers why the unit does not use body-worn video.
Officer T1 said the team did not want tactics being given out and "inadvertently it always seems to get out on social media".
"It has a flow-on effect with tactics, equipment, positioning, so forth," he said on Thursday.
As a result, the inquest has had to rely purely on recounts from tactical officers including Officer T1, who claimed he knew the situation "was going to get ugly" when Mr McKenzie snarled at them.
The 40-year-old started walking towards them while concealing his knife. Other police, who could see the weapon from the side, yelled at him to drop it.
T1 fired his Taser at Mr McKenzie, who fell to the ground, but the officer said it only kept him down briefly.
"He just bounced straight off ... he was off the ground extremely quickly," he said.
T1 said Mr McKenzie started lunging at the police and at one point he could "feel the wind pass" from the knife.
Mr McKenzie started attacking tactical Officer T2 before T1 told the others to shoot.
"I thought T2 was going to die," T1 said.
"I'm still satisfied he would have sustained an extremely horrific injury to his face, probably killed him."
The National Justice Project, representing Mr McKenzie's mother and step-father, has called for NSW Police to use body-worn cameras at all times.
"Todd was not a terrorist. There were no hostages. In fact, Todd was alone in his own home when NSW Police decided to breach his house and security - you have to ask yourself why police would need to turn off their body-worn cameras in a life-or-death situation," National Justice Project's principal solicitor George Newhouse said in a statement.
"The NSW Police must mandate the use of body cameras at all times as a vital tool for accountability and learning."
