Tales from the Police: When Official Accounts Undervalue Public Intelligence

When Craig Hicks murdered three Muslim students in North Carolina, the police provided a preliminary account that sounded more like a fairy tale. According to their version, the crime was the result of a dispute over parking. So, the murderer went to his neighbors' house and killed three people as casually as if he were borrowing tools to fix his car.

This account reminded me of similar police reports in my country, Kurdistan (or, as some politicians still call it, “North Iraq”), and other countries with similar governance. Such reports often insult public intelligence to the point that they could incite anger if ever used in fiction.

Take, for example, the story of Sardasht, a young student and journalist in Erbil. He wrote articles online, one of which was a satirical piece imagining himself as the husband of Masoud Barzani’s daughter, enjoying a life of luxury. After receiving threats, Sardasht expected his end. Soon after, he was kidnapped in front of his college—right in front of the campus police. His body was later discovered in Mosul.

The police in Erbil presented an account worthy of Hercule Poirot: Sardasht had been collaborating with a terrorist group, Ansar Al-Islam, and when he refused to continue, they kidnapped him in Erbil and took him to Mosul. The story conveniently ignored that Sardasht was not pro-Islamic and was not even a practicing Muslim. To add to the absurdity, this kidnapping supposedly occurred despite the many checkpoints between Erbil and Mosul, manned by “diligent” soldiers.

Another tale involved a guard murdered outside the office of the Islamic Group in Kurdistan. The culprits—young men affiliated with the ruling party—fled the scene, leaving behind their car and identity cards. Despite clear footage from the office's camera showing the beating and murder of the guard, the police claimed the men had merely stopped by to buy cakes and juice (even though there were no shops nearby) and had spoken “gently” to the guard.

And then there’s the tragic case in Sulaimania, where a corruption scandal involving land deals led to the arrest of several men, including the director of the city. The director, who was reportedly in high spirits and confident of his release, was later found dead in his cell. The official report? Suicide. And the method? Choking himself with the wire of a refrigerator. One might think that lifting and dropping the refrigerator would be a more plausible method, but somehow, he supposedly managed to strangle himself with a short wire.

Believing these accounts requires the same suspension of disbelief as the tale of Craig Hicks: a man who, armed with a pistol, decided to “discuss” parking with his neighbors and then thought, “Why go home empty-handed? Let me use my pistol.”