A Toronto Police officer felt he had “no choice” but to shoot a mentally ill woman sprinting toward him with a knife, an inquest heard Friday.

Const. Henry Tang testified that he had to react quickly when Sylvia Klibingaitis, 52, bolted from her North York home brandishing a knife on Oct. 7, 2011.

“I knew that she was trying to kill me,” Tang said. “The ferocity of her attack and the speed that she was coming towards me, I knew I had no choice but to fire my firearm.”

Klibingaitis had called 911 herself, telling the dispatcher that she had a knife and wanted to kill her mother. Tang was the first officer to respond to the call.

He activated the dashboard camera on his police cruiser and sped to the home, pulling over near the sidewalk. The disturbing video was played at a coroner’s inquest into the fatal police shootings of three mentally ill people.

Tang can be heard yelling “Put the knife down!” off-camera, before running backwards onto the street with his gun drawn. Klibingaitis follows quickly, sprinting toward the officer with the knife raised above her head.

As she runs out of view of the camera, three gunshots ring out.

Klibingaitis’s sisters, who are representing themselves at the inquest, entered a statement saying the video is of poor quality and the identity of the person holding the knife cannot be confirmed.

Sister Lili Steer appeared emotional as she cross-examined Tang. She said she wasn’t sure if she was shaking because it was cold in the courtroom, or if it was because she was nervous.

“I would like you to know that I would not have wanted you to not survive,” she told the officer. “I would have just liked for Sylvia to survive too.”

Steer suggested that Tang prompted a confrontation when he walked past the front door of the home. The 911 dispatcher had urged Klibingaitis to put down the knife and exit through the front door.

Tang replied that he did not know the instructions given by the dispatcher. He and another officer were walking around the home to set up a perimeter, believing that Klibingaitis had barricaded herself inside the home with her mother as a hostage.

The other officer was in the backyard and Tang was passing by the front door when Klibingaitis ran out, he testified.

“She’s coming out at a very frantic, fast pace,” he said. “Her face was very angry, almost wild-looking.”

As she continued to charge at him, ignoring his commands to drop the knife, he fired. The first two shots did not appear to hit her, but on the third shot, she dropped to the ground.

The other officer performed CPR as they waited for paramedics to arrive. Tang said he was in shock and began to pace and curse.

“I was wondering what had just happened. Why did she attack me? I never even confronted her,” he said. “I was wondering, did she want to die?”

The inquest has heard that Klibingaitis had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and suffered from religious delusions. She believed she was condemned by God to eternal damnation.

Klibingaitis was rushed to Sunnybrook hospital, where she was pronounced dead of a single gunshot wound to the heart.

A major focus of the inquest has been whether increased video surveillance of police encounters — such as lapel cameras — would help to prevent similar deaths in the future.

Tang said that he felt the dashboard camera video helped to show that Klibingaitis posed an imminent threat to his life. But he said more cameras would not have changed his decision to pull the trigger.

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Asked by his lawyer, Peter Brauti, whether he could have done anything differently that day, Tang said no.

“Nothing could have been done,” he said. “Often times I’ve wished she would have just put down the knife. That’s all that would have been required for it to de-escalate.”

The inquest continues.