Freddie Gray died on April 19.

Xu Chunhe died on May 2.

Twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray died on April 19. Seven days earlier, Baltimore police had arrested him for carrying a switchblade. During those seven days, his spinal cord was injured. He was taken to a trauma centre, but never woke again.

Forty-five-year-old Xu Chunhe died on May 2. That day, at Qing'an railway station in Heilongjiang, he was attempting to travel to Jinzhou, Dalian, to petition the authorities, accompanied by his mother, who was over eighty, and his three children, all under ten. Police stopped them. A confrontation followed. An officer drew his gun and shot him dead.

Twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray died on April 19. Like most Black people who grow up in Baltimore, Freddie Gray had no future he could dream of. He had two sisters and a mother addicted to drugs. Lead poisoning was diagnosed when he was a child. Together with poverty, it left him no chance at a higher education. Freddie Gray was arrested twenty-two times in Maryland, mostly for selling drugs. There was nothing remarkable in this. His story was Baltimore's story. Had he not died at the hands of police—had he starved on the street, or lost consciousness from an overdose in a basement—perhaps no one would remember him. His name would have vanished into the city's dirty air like all the other names cheaper than gravestones.

Forty-five-year-old Xu Chunhe died on May 2. Xu Chunhe was a farmer. He had a wife with severe mental illness, three children, and an elderly mother. Xu Chunhe could not work. He had a congenital heart condition, pneumonia, and nephritis. The family of six survived on subsistence benefits and on the money his mother and children made begging. According to his nephew, Mr. Li, Xu Chunhe was an idler. He took the money they begged and was addicted to drink. Xu Chunhe was also a frequent petitioner, as he was attempting to be that day. Before the police shot him, his children cried beside him, “Dad, let's go. Let's go home!” But Xu Chunhe did not listen. At that moment he was straining to hold on to the officer's baton and stop him continuing to beat him. The urgings of alcohol, life's humiliations and despair, all erupted at once and became an act of self-defence he was not supposed to make.

Twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray died on April 19. On April 21, cases were opened against the six officers involved. On April 28, the day after Freddie Gray's funeral, large protests broke out in Baltimore. The protests became violent demonstrations. A CVS was destroyed, more than twenty police officers were injured, and at least two hundred people were arrested.

Forty-five-year-old Xu Chunhe died on May 2. The next day, the deputy magistrate of Qing'an County visited the police officer involved, Li Lebin, on behalf of provincial and municipal leaders. Reports said the deputy magistrate commended the officer for protecting the lives and property of the public and continuing to struggle against a criminal despite being injured. As for the criminal, Xu Chunhe, his family had reportedly reached an agreement with the government. The government would pay to send his wife to a psychiatric hospital, his children to an orphanage, and his mother to a nursing home. Everyone would have somewhere to go, and both sides promised to pursue the matter no further.

Twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray died on April 19. During the days of unrest that followed in Baltimore, my classmates posted opinions on social media. They accused the media of bias: caring only about property damaged in the riots and not the human life lost, nor the structural racism and police violence behind it.

Forty-five-year-old Xu Chunhe died on May 2. People online said the man who had been shot was human trash, someone who lived off the begging of his old mother and his children. They said that had the police not killed him, the headline would have been “Man Seizes Gun at Station, Kills Many.” Others said an idle man would have caused trouble sooner or later. One less menace in the world.

Freddie Gray died on April 19. Xu Chunhe died on May 2.

Life and death are not decided by heaven; what happens is not decided by man.

In the few photographs that exist, Gray wears a bright red T-shirt. Xu Chunhe poses with his wife, children, and mother for a family portrait against a cheap studio backdrop. On it are green trees and a small bridge. Everyone smiles unnaturally.

You think that perhaps they both had happy times.