SHORTLY before being shot dead Westbury's Nicholas Whiteley made a highly distressed call to his step-mother, the inquest into the 2010 police shooting heard yesterday.
``I just kept telling him, `We're on our way and it would be all OK,' '' Carol Brzeski said as she broke down in the witness box.
Counsel assisting the coroner Tom Cox asked if she recalled Mr Whiteley saying, ``I'm f---ing going to kill them'' during the call.
An emotional Mrs Brzeski said she had, but in an earlier statement said she was unsure if he meant the police or others.
``I told him he was being silly and he wasn't going to do that at all,'' she said yesterday.
``He was upset, he said he was being followed around (his house by police) and it was annoying him.
``I told him, `me and your dad, we're on the way', and for him to go outside and I loved him.''
But by the time she and husband, Martin, arrived the 21-year-old had been shot by Constable Ian Blake who told the inquest on Monday he believed Mr Whiteley was going to kill him.
When paramedic Christopher Chapman arrived at Mr Whiteley's Westbury residence, he told the inquest he held ``grave fears'' for Constable Blake but ``he was pushing me on [to Mr Whiteley]''.
Mr Chapman then tried resuscitating Mr Whiteley for an extended period, as is Ambulance Tasmania's procedure for young patients ``to give them every best shot we can'' of survival.
He was ``gravely concerned'' for Mr Whiteley because the bullet entered near the heart.
The single shot was fired after a scuffle between Mr Whiteley and Constable Blake which witness Sheena Button said sounded like ``like two bulls in a kitchen''.
Constable Blake attended the house that Sunday morning at the request of Ms Button while she collected her belongings.
At the time she and Mr Whiteley had just ended their five-year relationship and had had a baby together that year.
In her police statement, Ms Button said she told Constable Blake he might need to bring another officer because Mr Whiteley was ``unpredictable''.
Yesterday she said he was also ``suicidal'' in the lead-up to the shooting.
``I told (Constable Blake) that he was very strong, basically very easily provoked . . . not in a good place,'' she said.
Watching from her car in front of the house, she said Constable Blake tried to arrest Mr Whiteley and sprayed him with capsicum spray after an altercation at the front gate.
She said Constable Blake hit Mr Whiteley three times with a baton which ``shocked'' her former partner.
Following the gunshot she saw Constable Blake leave the house and ``crawl up the driveway''.
``He had blood everywhere, on his face, he had the gun in his hand,'' she said before breaking down in the witness stand.
Her mother Karyne Button told the inquest Mr Whiteley threw two unsuccessful punches at Constable Blake, who had repeatedly told Mr Whiteley he was under arrest.
But she added ``Nick was a lover not a fighter''.
On Monday the inquest heard Constable Blake describe Mr Whiteley that day as a ``ferocious, murderous angry man''.