A 21-YEAR-OLD man who was walking in a lane between two buildings in Banggang Village, Songgang Subdistrict, Bao’an District, was killed by a stone that fell from one of the buildings Tuesday evening.

Bao’an police are investigating to find who should be held responsible.

According to some witnesses, they heard a loud sound at around 8 p.m. Tuesday. They thought somebody had committed suicide. When they looked out of the window, they saw a man on the ground with blood spurting out of his head.

Video clips provided by witnesses showed the man twitching with his head in the arms of a woman, identified as his companion, who was trying to stop the bleeding. There was a big stone at the men’s legs. The tragedy happened in a 3-meter-wide lane between two buildings built by villagers.

According to some villagers, the man, along with his two lady companions, was on the way to the night market when the accident happened. Medical workers who arrived at the scene failed to bring him back to life.

Residents guessed that the stone might have fallen from one of the two buildings or been dropped by someone living in one of the two buildings.

Police later confirmed the identity of the man, surnamed Li, a 21-year-old native of Lianjiang, Guangdong Province and started an investigation by checking the buildings for confirmation of the cause.

Similar incidents of objects being dropped from heights leading to deaths or injuries have happened occasionally in Shenzhen.

In August 2014, a man in Longhua District was killed by a falling cutting board in an urban village in Minzhi. A man who was caught by police confessed that a cutting board had slipped off his balcony and hit the man on the ground.

In May 2006, a primary school student in Nanshan District was killed on his way home by a piece of glass that fell from a housing estate. (Han Ximin)