Danukul ''Dan'' Mokmool struggled with drug addiction and mental illness, his family said. Credit:Facebook He feared someone was trying to hurt him with a metal pole that was in the backyard. "If he has something on his mind he will disappear and he ended up in the city, I guess," Mr Huynh, 19, said. At 6.45pm, as commuters filled the station's Eddy Avenue entrance, bystanders called triple zero to report what appeared to be an armed robbery in a florist. Florist Emmanuel Theoharis, 76, said Mr Mokmool suddenly came up behind him and held a broken bottle to his neck in what he initially thought was a friendly prank.

Footage showed Mr Mokmool running at an officer who then opened fire. He broke free before Mr Mokmool dropped the bottle and grabbed a pair of scissors. "He was yelling 'don't move, call the police, call the police'," Theoharis said. "He was really disturbed. He was kicking the flower pots and waving the scissors around." Charlie Huynh said his half-brother walked out of their home hours before the shooting. Credit:Rachel Olding Three Police Transport Command officers, both uniformed and in plain clothes, were on the scene in seconds, yelling "put it down" to Mokmool.

Footage showed him running at a plain-clothes officer before four shots – two from two officers – were fired rapidly. He was hit in the head and chest and died instantly. Florist Emmanuel Theoharis allegedly had a broken bottle held to his neck just before the shooting. Credit:Kate Geraghty Fairfax Media understands that capsicum spray was used unsuccessfully during the encounter but Tasers were not drawn. Mr Mokmool had worked on and off as a furniture packer and a forklift driver but stopped working as drug addiction and mental illness besieged him. Reformed drug dealer Tony Hoang said Mr Mokmool walked into his church one day, and spoke frankly about his problems.

Tony Hoang, a former drug dealer and gangster who mentors youth and runs a church largely populated by reformed criminals, said Mr Mokmool walked into his church one day in 2014 after being released from prison. Heavily tattooed but quietly spoken, Mr Mokmool spoke frankly about his addiction to ice and his depression, Mr Hoang said. Danukul Mokmool, on the left, with his half-brother Charlie Huynh and their mother, had attended church after his release from prison. "There were periods and pockets of him doing well while coming to church and getting some structure in life," he said. "I always tried to cast that vision of a changed life, that he could do it if he chose. But he had some mental issues going on. He was seeing things and experiencing these supernatural experiences."

Mr Mokmool would often ride his electric bike to Mr Hoang's house for Bible study. Sometimes he would arrive at church in a suit with a smile on his face. "For a while he was doing good and then he just went off and I hadn't seem him for about a year," he said. Mr Huynh said his brother collected medication from a mental health facility in Liverpool daily and largely spent his time at home on his computer. After stints in prison for drug and gang-related offences, he had enrolled in TAFE in the hope of working with computers. In a tragic twist, Mr Huynh watched footage of the shooting on Wednesday night, not knowing it was his brother involved.

His aunt broke into tears when police delivered the news while his mother, who is in Thailand visiting family, was arranging to fly home. "They're not angry but more upset [at] the fact that it happened," he said. "I don't know why [they would] shoot a man that was just holding scissors but ... it was a weapon at the end of the day." Mr Theoharis, who returned to work on Thursday less than 12 hours after the ordeal, said he felt sorry for the man who attacked him but believed police did the right thing. "They had no choice," he said. "If they didn't he would have attacked them."

Former police officer Michael Kennedy, head of the policing program at Western Sydney University, said officers were trained to fire at the central body mass rather than shooting limbs to incapacitate. Loading "That is the way you stop someone from injuring someone or injuring himself," he said. "The bottom line is, when you're in a critical incident like that you've got a couple of seconds to decide what to do." The critical incident investigation will be headed by the homicide squad. It will be subject to an independent review and sent to the Coroner.