South African rugby player killed by Hawaii police had acute CTE

HONOLULU — A Black former professional rugby player from South Africa shot by police months after moving to Hawaii suffered from a degenerative brain disease often found in American football players and other athletes subjected to repeated head trauma, autopsy results show.

The finding could help explain Lindani Myeni’s bizarre behaviour before the deadly 2021 confrontation with Honolulu officers. It also offers another layer of detail about a shooting that gained international attention during heightened calls for police reform following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

An addendum to Myeni’s autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press shows his brain tissue was sent to the Boston University CTE Center, which found the 29year-old father of two suffered from stage three chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Commonly known as CTE, the disease can only be diagnosed posthumously.

Stage four 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.

Lindsay Myeni, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging police shot her husband because he was Black, said she was shocked to learn of the CTE diagnosis.

“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 favourite sport at 50 or 51 anyway.”

Police were called to a Honolulu home about a stranger who had entered uninvited. He said, “I have videos of you,” claimed a cat at the home was his and made other strange comments, according to Honolulu’s prosecuting attorney, who decided not to pursue charges against any of the officers.

Police officials have said officers weren’t reacting to his race, but rather his behaviour, which put officers’ lives in jeopardy.

Prosecutors found that deadly force was justified because Myeni physically attacked officers, leaving one with a concussion.

He had been emotional earlier that day about family issues and the couple had visited numerous spiritual sites around the island of Oahu, Lindsay Myeni said, but he showed no signs of CTE symptoms. Those include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression and depression.

She said that looking back, she wondered if he was depressed or had mood swings during the pandemic, “but didn’t we all?”

Myeni started playing rugby around age 13, and by 19 had played professionally in South Africa, his wife said. He also played in Colorado and Florida, she said. She was aware of him having two or three concussions.

Dr. Masahiko Kobayashi, the medical examiner who autopsied Myeni and concluded he died from gunshot wounds, said he suspected CTE after hearing about Myeni’s behaviour and his sports past.

“The case of Mr. Myeni was really simple when I just determined the cause and manner of death. But the circumstances were very complex, and the public was greatly impacted by this case,” he said.

Kobayashi said he hoped the CTE finding might provide a clearer picture of what led to Myeni’s death.

“We medical examiners sometimes act as a finder of facts more than the cause and manner of death,” Kobayashi said. “After I thought about all of this, I believed the results of a CTE study should be a part of a full and complete understanding of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Myeni, which is why I decided to order the test.”

But CTE doesn’t help Lindsay Myeni understand what happened that night.

“To me, it still doesn’t answer any questions as to why you would shoot him,” she said.

Myeni’s behaviour sounded like “classic symptoms” related to CTE, said Paul Anderson, a lawyer who represents families of athletes with brain injuries.