An officer shot a homeless man. Two very different versions of what happened are being argued in court

City of Cape Town law enforcement officer Luvolwethu Kati outside the Wynberg Magistrates Court earlier this year when his trial began. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks

• The law enforcement officer who shot and killed Dumisani Joxo last year did so without warning, a state witness has claimed.
• According to the witness, Joxo was walking in a direction that seemed like he was going past the commotion when the officer pushed him and fatally shot him.
• The officer, Luvolwethu Kati, has pled not guilty to murdering Joxo

The law enforcement officer who shot and killed a homeless man in Cape Town last year, fired the shot without warning, a witness told the Wynberg Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Luvolwethu Kati shot and killed Dumisani Joxo in Rondebosch in January last year after an alleged argument between Kati and another homeless man, Linda Mbuqe. Mbuqe has previously testified that he had boiled water in a pot over a fire and made pap, and that law enforcement officers had arrived and kicked over the pot.

On Wednesday, Dylan-Leigh Coleridge, 19, took to the stand and told the court that he had been visiting his mother Christin Coleridge when the incident occurred.

He said he was sitting under a tree a few meters from where Mbuqe was preparing the pap when he saw Kati draw his firearm. He then rushed to the tent where his mother was “to tell her a pistol is being waved”. Joxo, who was also in the tent, was still asleep at the time, Coleridge said.

“The pistol was drawn first without any warning or anything. Linda [Mbuqe] then picked up a pickaxe, to which the law enforcement officer said ‘If you hit me with that pickaxe, I will shoot you’,” the court heard.

Prosecutor Ebrahim Arend asked Coleridge whether Kati was there to do his job and if he asked Mbuqe to extinguish the fire. Coleridge said yes, and told the court that after Kati asked Mbuqe to douse the fire and he refused, Kati “kicked the pot over, which caused tension”.

“It got more intense once he [Mbuqe] picked up the pickaxe. The female law enforcement officer told him to stop what he was doing and put down the pickaxe. Then the argument started moving further back from where I was sitting,” Coleridge said.

Coleridge told the court that Joxo then heard what was happening between Mbuqe and Kati and wanted to leave the tent, but his mother held him back. “He was very relaxed about it to the point where it seemed like he was just going for a walk.”

“Once he got within a metre of the law enforcement officer, it didn’t look like Dumsa [Joxo] even looked at the officer. It looked like he was going to just walk past. But then the law enforcement officer pushed him and fired a shot without even a warning shot or anything.

“The moment the shot went off, Linda dropped the pickaxe and vanished,” Coleridge told the court.

Arend asked Coleridge why Mbuqe would need to fetch a pickaxe in the first place and whether Kati was facing Joxo at the time of the shooting. Coleridge said Mbuqe fetched the pickaxe “because the law enforcement officer drew his pistol”.

He also told the court that Kati and Joxo were “face-to-face” when Kati shot him.

During his cross-examination, Kati’s attorney John Riley questioned how Coleridge knew what was being said between Mbuqe and Kati, given that he does not understand Xhosa. Coleridge said he could tell that they were arguing based on their body language and from what his mother explained to him afterwards.

Riley said that Kati told him the only time he drew his firearm was after Mbuqe picked up his pickaxe and approached him “in an angry way”. Coleridge denied this and maintained that Kati drew his firearm when Mbuqe refused to douse the fire. After that Mbuqe went to fetch the pickaxe.

Riley also told the court that Kati denied kicking the pot. “My client said he didn’t kick the pot but pushed it with his foot and it tilted to the side and then whatever was in the pot fell out.”

Coleridge’s mother previously testified that Joxo was upset after Kati pushed him, but Coleridge denied that Joxo was angry and said that it looked like Joxo wanted to walk past the argument. “I thought Dumsa was just telling Linda to leave the guy alone as he walked past.”

He also told the court that despite Mbuqe being armed with a pickaxe and approaching Kati, Kati only made physical contact with Joxo before he shot him. In his witness testimony, Mbuqe told the court that Kati had pushed him, but Coleridge said this was not correct.

Based on Coleridge’s testimony, Riley also questioned why it would be necessary for Kati to push Joxo away “if he was just passing by in a relaxed way”. Coleridge said that Joxo was blind in one eye “so he might not have seen where he was going”. To this, Riley responded, “You’re trying to put the deceased’s actions in a very innocent light”.

Riley argued that Kati fired the shot which killed Joxo after he and Mbuqe “were attacking him” and threatened to take his firearm from him. Coleridge denied this.

Turning to the statement Coleridge made to police in March 2022, Riley pointed out that he failed to mention that Kati drew the firearm before Mbuqe fetched his pickaxe. “I’m going to say to you respectfully that you are amending your evidence to protect the deceased”.

“I’m only giving the version that I know and I hope it will bring justice,” Coleridge responded.

“I’m not trying to make anybody seem like an angel or a criminal. Whoever the court finds guilty or not is up to them,” Coleridge told the court as his cross-examination concluded.

Magistrate Heather Paulse adjourned proceedings and the matter is expected to be back in court on 8 August.

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