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A Minnesota county is investigating the arrest of a Hmong American man by federal officers that was captured on video as a potential case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, officials announced Monday.
Ramsey County attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at a news conference they are pursuing information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that they need for their investigation into the arrest of ChongLy (Scott) Thao, 56, on Jan. 18. Ramsey County includes the state capital of St. Paul.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers bashed open the front door of Thao’s St. Paul home at gunpoint — without a warrant as far as Choi and Fletcher have been able to determine — then led him outside in just his underwear and a blanket in freezing conditions.
“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 said. “There’s no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around.”
The sheriff continued: “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?”
No co-operation from DHS so far
DHS, which oversees ICE, has refused so far to co-operate with Ramsey County, or with other state and local investigations into the killings by federal officers of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become a central tool in U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants, but as CBC’s Jonathan Montpetit explains, that’s not what the agency was originally designed to do.
ICE and DHS representatives did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Ramsey County’s announcement.
Choi said they’re trying to determine whether any crimes were committed that they could prosecute under state or federal law. He also said St. Paul police were investigating another case related to the immigration crackdown for potential violations, but he declined to provide details.
“This is not about any type of predetermined agenda other than to seek the truth and to investigate the facts,” Choi said.
Agents who arrested Thao eventually realized he was a longtime U.S. citizen with no criminal record, Thao said in an interview with The Associated Press in January. They returned him to his home after a couple of hours.
Homeland Security later said ICE officers had been seeking two convicted sex offenders. But Thao told the AP he had never seen the two men before and that they did not live with him. The Minnesota Department of Corrections later said one of the two wanted men was still in prison.
Videos captured the scene, which included people blowing whistles and horns, and neighbours screaming at more than a dozen gun-toting agents to leave Thao’s family alone.
Thao declined to comment on the announcement Monday.
Request for evidence
The director of the trial division in the county attorney’s office, Hao Nguyen, said they wrote to DHS, ICE and local federal prosecutors March 20 outlining the evidence they’re seeking.
“We know there are reports, there’s just no way that there aren’t,” Nguyen said. “We want also to know who was working that day, who was working that month. Where did they report to? Who did they report to? We also want to understand what recordings might be out there in terms of digital recordings, witness interviews, video recordings.”
They set a deadline of April 30, after which they could sue or convene a grand jury, Choi said.
The state and the chief prosecutor in neighbouring Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, sued the Trump administration last month to gain access to evidence they say they need to independently investigate three shootings by federal officers in Minneapolis, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The lawsuit accuses the federal government of reneging on its promise to co-operate with state investigations after the surge of around 3,000 federal law enforcement officers into Minnesota.
Choi urged members of the public who might have evidence about Thao’s case or other potential violations to come forward. Minnesota and Hennepin County have made similar appeals.
The Trump administration has suggested Minnesota officials lack jurisdiction to investigate federal law enforcement actions. But Fletcher said he believes they do.
“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents,” the sheriff said. “There’s qualified immunity for all law enforcement in a lot of different capacities. But seizing a person out of their home who’s an American citizen, they’re not immune from that.”
