A thorough, impartial investigation needed in Len Cloete’s shooting

It was a scene from a bad, B-grade Hollywood movie: an aggressive, muscled man, who has grabbed a female cop’s gun, challenging other cops to shoot him… and one of them does.

But this is not, it seems, a case of what they call “suicide by cop” in the US.

This was yet another violent scenario in South Africa which got out of hand and ended in tragedy, but not before awakening the spectres of gender and race violence.

The question everyone is asking: was the policeman who shot Len Cloete in the head from close range at all justified in his action?

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There is no doubt that Cloete was angry, that he had his own weapon and later disarmed a female police officer and that he still had the gun in his hand when he was shot.

But was the pulling of the trigger related to race hate, to a lack of training on the part of the cops (especially in de-escalating violent confrontations), or was it because the officers genuinely felt threatened?

Did they hesitate to act firmly initially because the troublemaker was white?

These are all questions which need answering – and we need a thorough, impartial investigation to give us those answers.