Officials in Minnesota’s Ramsey County announced Monday they are examining whether federal immigration agents committed kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment when they arrested a Hmong American citizen in an incident caught on camera.
County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher told reporters they plan to seek information from the Department of Homeland Security for their probe into the January detention of ChongLy “Scott” Thao. The county encompasses Minnesota’s capital city of St. Paul.
Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents broke down Thao’s front door with weapons drawn, operating without a warrant, before forcing him outside wearing only undergarments and a blanket during bitter cold weather.
“There are many facts we don’t know yet, but there’s one that we do know. And that is that Mr. Thao is and has been an American citizen. There’s not a dispute over that,” Fletcher stated. “There’s no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around.”
Fletcher added: “Is that good law enforcement, to take an American citizen out of their home and drive them around aimlessly, trying to determine what they can tell them?”
The Department of Homeland Security, which supervises ICE, has declined to assist with other state and local probes into fatal shootings of two American citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis during the previous administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Choi explained they are working to establish if any violations occurred that could warrant prosecution under state or federal statutes.
“This is not about, any type of predetermined agenda other than to seek the truth and to investigate the facts,” he stated.
Federal agents ultimately discovered Thao was a long-term American citizen without any criminal history, Thao revealed during a January interview with The Associated Press. Officials brought him back to his residence after several hours.
Homeland Security subsequently stated ICE personnel had been searching for two individuals convicted of sex crimes. However, Thao informed the AP he had never encountered these men and they were not residents of his home.
Recorded footage showed the incident, featuring community members using whistles and horns, while neighbors shouted at more than twelve armed agents to stop bothering Thao’s family.
Minnesota and the top prosecutor in Hennepin County, which contains Minneapolis, filed legal action against the former administration last month seeking access to evidence they claim is necessary for independent investigations of three federal officer shootings in Minneapolis, including the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The legal challenge alleges the federal government broke its commitment to assist state investigations following the deployment of approximately 3,000 federal law enforcement personnel to Minnesota.
Both Minnesota and Hennepin County have requested public assistance in gathering information about potentially unlawful federal officer conduct, citing federal authorities’ refusal to provide evidence.
The former administration argued Minnesota officials lack authority to investigate these incidents. State and county prosecutors maintain they must conduct independent reviews because they lack confidence in federal oversight.
The Justice Department announced in January it was launching a federal civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death, placing two officers on administrative leave, but determined a similar federal review was unnecessary for Good’s killing.
