Former pro rugby player from South Africa shot dead by police in Hawaii had CTE
Written from a report by AP News
A former professional rugby player who was shot dead by police months after moving to Hawaii had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) - a degenerative brain disease identified in athletes who sustain repeated head trauma, medics say.
Caption: Lindani Myeni (front right, no shirt)
Lindani Myeni from South Africa, who had played for the Border Bulldogs, is said to have exhibited ‘erratic’ behaviour before the incident with Honolulu officers on 14th April, 2021.
Police had been called after Myeni, a stay at home father of two, had followed a couple into their home while wearing a Zulu feathered headband and then made bizarre comments regarding having video of them and that a cat at the property belonged to him.
Police had arrived and in the darkness had been attacked, leaving one officer with facial fractures and a concussion. He apparently kept striking out after being shot in the chest.
About 30 minutes beforehand, Myeni had interjected himself in a situation where police were investigating a vehicle break-in and had to be told to go away by both the victim and officers. Myeni then asked one of the officers for money to buy food and tried to get into the back of a police car.
Initially, Myeni’s family had declined the chance to have his brain examined by the Boston University CTE Center but an addendum to the 29-year-old’s autopsy shows his brain tissue was examined and revealed stage 3 CTE.
Stage 4 is the most severe level and experts say it’s alarming for someone as young as Myeni to have such a critical case of CTE.
His wife Lindsay Myeni, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging police shot her husband because he was black, said she was shocked to learn of the CTE diagnosis, and that he had only suffered two or three concussions she was aware of. She said he had showed no signs of CTE symptoms. Those include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression and depression.
“I had no clue. He had no clue,” she said from Richard’s Bay, South Africa, where she now lives. “So it was kind of devastating because it felt like ... someone was telling me like, hey, he died from racism at 29, but he was going to be killed from his favorite sport at 50 or 51 anyway.”
Dr. Masahiko Kobayashi, the Honolulu medical examiner who autopsied Myeni and concluded he died from gunshot wounds, said he suspected CTE after hearing about Myeni’s behavior and his contact sports past.
Honolulu’s prosecuting attorney decided not to pursue charges against any of the officers with officials adding that officers weren’t reacting to his race, but rather his behaviour, which put officers’ lives in jeopardy.
Bridget Morgan-Bickerton, a Honolulu attorney representing Myeni’s wife, said he wasn’t aggressive, “until he was subjected to unjustified aggression, being yelled at, at gunpoint, in the dark to ‘get on the ground’ with no announcement of who was asking.”
“An addendum to the 29-year-old’s autopsy shows his brain tissue was examined and revealed stage 3 CTE.”