I’m getting tired of reporting on all these “mysterious” deaths that occur while people are in police custody. These are of course only mysterious in the sense that the cops will not admit that they beat someone to death, so they either come up with bizarre explanations for the death or throw up their hands and express complete confusion.

The latest is from Henan, and it’s unfortunately very typical:

A 29-year-old man died mysteriously in a detention house last Sunday in Central China’s Henan province after being held for a month, leaving the police and his family in disagreement over the cause of his death.

The police of Zhecheng county in Shangqiu city told Wang Shouzhang’s family that he died suddenly of a heart attack with “no physical injuries”, while his family insist he died unnaturally, since his body was bruised.

“His body was so injured; blood was visible around his nose and ears and his chest was swollen with bruises,” Li Guizhi, Wang’s mother, told China Daily.

As usual, I do not know the facts of the case first hand, so I have no idea who is lying and who is telling the truth. That being said, whether the body had bruises on it or not seems like a fairly simple thing to check, huh?

Shan Dengjun, a publicity official with Zhecheng police bureau, said the cause of death having been listed as a heart attack was “inaccurate” and an inquiry is being conducted into the circumstances surrounding Wang’s death.

“If everything is as clean as the police claim, why did they stop us from taking pictures of him and smash our cell phones?” Li asked.

The local procuratorate went ahead with the autopsy and concluded that no injuries were found on Wang’s body.

Look, the guy either had bruises on him or not. The problem with these cases is that no one trusts the police, and then of course everyone assumes that the other local government officials (e.g. the prosecutors) are doing everything possible to protect the police.

To state the obvious, this is once again a rule of law problem that will not get better until people start to trust local government. With each one of these “mysterious” death cases, that trust is further eroded.