‘IF HE WAS WHITE HE WOULDN'T BE DEAD'

The heartbroken wife of the South African rugby player who was shot dead in Hawaii wants answers

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

THEY spent the morning driving along the coast, stopping at the beach for a bite to eat. Later that day, he dropped his wife and children at home, then said he was going for a drive “to clear my head”.

Shortly afterwards, his wife called him and he said he was coming home – and those were the last words he’d ever say to her.

Less than 20 minutes later, Lindani Myeni (29) was dead and now his widow, Lindsay, is struggling to make sense of it all. “How do you talk to someone and 18 minutes later they’re dead?” she says.

The death of the KwaZulu-Natal club rugby player at the hands of police officers in Honolulu, Hawaii, has made headlines around the world.

Another black man shot dead by police – just three days after Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African American, was killed by a policewoman in Minnesota and six days before cop Derek Chauvin was convicted for causing the death of George Floyd (46) by kneeling on his neck for close to nine minutes last year.

Lindsay (29) doesn’t mince her words. “If Lindani was a white man, he wouldn’t be dead.”

His family have filed a wrongful death suit against the police on the grounds they used force without identifying themselves first.

Edited police bodycam footage watched around the world shows the officers firing at least three shots before they identify themselves.

But the cops claim they did nothing wrong – they responded to a report of a burglary and everything went haywire from there.