{"id":16591,"date":"2026-04-14T01:22:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T01:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/16591\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T01:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T01:22:26","slug":"minnesota-authorities-investigate-ice-arrest-of-hmong-american-man-as-possible-kidnapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/16591\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota authorities investigate ICE arrest of Hmong American man as possible kidnapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) \u2014 A Minnesota county is investigating the arrest of a Hmong American man<\/a> by federal officers that was captured on video as a potential case of kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, officials announced Monday. <\/p>\n

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at a news conference they are pursuing information from the Department of Homeland Security that they need for their investigation into the arrest of ChongLy \u201cScott\u201d Thao, 56, on Jan. 18. Ramsey County includes the state capital of St. Paul. <\/p>\n

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers bashed open the front door of Thao\u2019s St. Paul home at gunpoint \u2014 without a warrant as far as Choi and Fletcher have been able to determine \u2014 then led him outside in just his underwear and a blanket in freezing conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many facts we don\u2019t know yet, but there\u2019s one that we do know. And that is that Mr. Thao is and has been an American citizen. There\u2019s not a dispute over that,\u201d Fletcher said. \u201cThere\u2019s no dispute that he was taken out of his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sheriff continued: \u201cIs 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?\u201d <\/p>\n

DHS, which oversees ICE, has refused so far to cooperate 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\u2019s immigration crackdown. <\/p>\n

\u201cICE does not \u2018kidnap\u2019 people,\u201d the agency said in a statement that called Ramsey County\u2019s announcement \u201cnothing but a political stunt to demonize ICE law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choi said they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not about any type of predetermined agenda other than to seek the truth and to investigate the facts,\u201d Choi said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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The ICE statement did not address the county\u2019s request for evidence, but it asserted that investigators \u201cconcluded sexual predator targets had ties to the property\u201d \u2014 something that Thao and his family denied.<\/p>\n

Videos captured the scene, which included people blowing whistles and horns, and neighbors screaming at more than a dozen gun-toting agents to leave Thao\u2019s family alone.<\/p>\n

Thao declined to comment on the announcement Monday.<\/p>\n

The director of the trial division in the County Attorney\u2019s Office, Hao Nguyen, said they wrote to DHS, ICE and local federal prosecutors March 20 outlining the evidence they\u2019re seeking. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there are reports, there\u2019s just no way that there aren\u2019t,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

They set a deadline of April 30, after which they could sue or convene a grand jury, Choi said.<\/p>\n

The state and the chief prosecutor in neighboring Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, sued the Trump administration last month<\/a> 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<\/a> and Alex Pretti<\/a>. It happened during the surge of around 3,000 federal law enforcement<\/a> officers into Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Choi urged members of the public who might have evidence about Thao\u2019s case or other potential violations to come forward. Minnesota and Hennepin County have made similar appeals.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has suggested Minnesota officials lack jurisdiction to investigate federal law enforcement actions. But Fletcher said he believes they do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents,\u201d the sheriff said. \u201cThere\u2019s qualified immunity for all law enforcement in a lot of different capacities. But seizing a person out of their home who\u2019s an American citizen, they\u2019re not immune from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Karnowski reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press reporter Jack Brook contributed to this story from New Orleans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) \u2014 A Minnesota county is investigating the arrest of a Hmong American man by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[156,61,10411,434,38,50,8,161,1145,166,160,158,475,163,9,157,7212,7,165,480,54,100,106],"class_list":{"0":"post-16591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-alex-pretti","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-burglary","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-immigration","16":"tag-kidnapping","17":"tag-law-enforcement","18":"tag-minneapolis","19":"tag-minnesota","20":"tag-minnesota-ice-crackdown","21":"tag-mn-state-wire","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-renee-good","24":"tag-st-paul","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-u-s-department-of-homeland-security","27":"tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states-government","30":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116400445358552010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}