CBS television cameraman Chris Everson, whose film footage of the incident was broadcast around the world, said he still could not explain, 12 years on, why police allowed him to film the ambush in which two children and a man were killed.
During a day of often emotional and tearful testimony, a TRC panel sitting in Athlone, Cape Town, heard on Tuesday how railway police hiding in crates on the back of a truck shot indiscriminately at a group of stone-throwers in October 1985.
The parents and relatives of the three victims - Shaun Magmoed, 16, Michael Miranda, 11, and Jonathan Claasen, 21 - told of the emotional trauma they suffered in the aftermath of the shootings, and of their failure to successfully prosecute the policemen involved.
They also denied that the dead youths had been part of the crowd throwing stones at vehicles travelling down Thornton Road on October 15, the day of the shootings.
Another to testify was Amina Abrahams who wept as she told how her son Ashraf was severely wounded by police in the incident and was so traumatised by his experience that he was now mentally unstable.
He had been six-years-old at the time of the incident, she said.
Although the shootings sparked an international outcry, police defended their actions, saying it was a necessary technique to combat stone-throwers.
Everson told the commission he did not believe the Trojan Horse shootings were the first, or last time, police used this "technique" to deal with protesters.
Shortly before the October 15 incident, he and his soundman had come across a boy lying dead in the road in Crossroads. Standing around the body had been a group of policemen. Parked nearby was a truck loaded with boxes. No police vehicles were in the vicinity.
Several months after the Trojan Horse shootings he and his soundman were again in Athlone when they noticed a blue vehicle with a blue tarpaulin covering its sides driving erratically around the suburb.
Everson said they followed it to the gates of Manenberg police station.
"We saw policemen jumping out the back with shotguns. It appeared to me to be exactly the same trap was about to be set again."
He said on the day of the Trojan Horse incident he had set up his camera a short distance away from a group of people who were stoning cars as they drove by.
"They were throwing stones at vehicles driven by whites or government-owned vehicles. Then this yellow vehicle approached from behind us and went past. It was an SA Railways truck.
"It went through the crowd and nobody threw stones. I remember thinking it was remarkable because it was clearly a railways truck."
A short while later the vehicle had returned from the opposite direction. This time stones were hurled at it, and the windscreen was cracked.
Everson said he began filming as a policeman hiding next to the truck driver sprang into view and began shooting out the window. Simultaneous policemen hidden in the crates on the back of the vehicle opened fire.
When questioned by several panel members, he said he could not explain why police had launched the operation when he had been standiing in plain sight filming the crowd.
"I remember thinking how strange it was. The driver (of the truck) must have been able to see me. Yet he turned around and came back. Maybe he did not care."
Earlier on Tuesday, the commission heard a demand for justice from one of the survivors of the shootings.
Ismail Ryklief, who was shot in both legs in the incident, said the policemen responsible for the ambush had gone unpunished in spite of shooting "innocent children".
"I don't think that is justice. The only time I am going to feel happy is if they are punished and go to prison."
Miranda's parents, Georgina and Theo Williams, told the commission they only learnt of their son's death the day after the shooting.
"We found him in the mortuary. wo bullets in his forehead and three in his face. According to the autopsy report he also had a bullet in his throat."
Theo Williams said he was still struggling to come to terms with his son's death.
"How could it happen? I mean a pikkie (youngster) against a gun. Today the pikkie is not here but the pain is still here. We are like a bike without wheels."