You may have seen the video.
I’m not going to repost it here. The man in that clip has been embarrassed enough. He was the one standing in the snow in Minnesota back in January, barely clothed, wrapped in a blanket like an afterthought while armed federal agents surrounded him. That man is ChongLy “Scott” Thao, and he’s not undocumented, not a suspect, not some mystery figure. He’s a U.S. citizen.
What happened to him wasn’t subtle. ICE agents kicked in the door of his St. Paul home, reportedly without a judicial warrant, with guns drawn. They dragged him outside in freezing weather wearing little more than underwear, sandals, and a thin blanket, then drove him around while trying to figure out who they had.
Let me repeat that. They did not know who they had.
The official explanation at the time came from DHS, which said agents were looking for two convicted sex offenders supposedly tied to the address. Thao and his family said they didn’t know those men and that they didn’t live there.
Yeah, because sex offenders are so well known for keeping their addresses updated with authorities. That’s sarcasm, by the way.
One of the supposed sex offenders, as it turns out, wasn’t even available to be found, as he was already in prison.
And if you’ve been paying attention, “we were looking for sex offenders” is starting to sound like one of those go-to lines, right up there with “weaponized vehicle.” It’s the kind of explanation that’s supposed to shut down questions before anyone asks too many.
Meanwhile, the man they actually took was a 56-year-old naturalized citizen who’s been in this country for decades. Thao is Hmong, which matters because the Hmong are an ethnic group from Laos who were heavily recruited by the United States during the CIA’s covert war in Southeast Asia. When that war ended, many Hmong families were forced to flee for their lives and resettled in the U.S.
Thao’s family came here in that wave. This is supposed to be the place they were escaping to, not the place where your door gets kicked in and you’re hauled out half-naked at gunpoint.
The ICE morons eventually realized what they should have known before they broke the door down. Thao wasn’t their guy. He had no criminal record. After fingerprinting him and photographing him, they brought him back home like nothing happened. No explanation or apology. Just a busted door and a moment that went viral for all the wrong reasons.
Now fast forward a few months, and the tone has changed dramatically.
Officials in Ramsey County are investigating what happened to Thao as a potential case of kidnapping, along with burglary and false imprisonment.
Authorities say there’s no dispute that Thao is a U.S. citizen and no dispute that he was taken from his home and driven around by federal agents who didn’t know who he was. The only real question left is whether anyone will be held accountable for it.
As expected, it doesn’t look too promising.
DHS hasn’t exactly been eager to help. Federal officials have refused to cooperate with local investigators in this case. The Trump administration has also taken the position that the state doesn’t even have jurisdiction to investigate federal agents in the first place.
What happened to ChongLy Thao doesn’t feel complicated. A citizen had his door smashed in, was taken at gunpoint, hauled outside in freezing weather, and driven around while agents tried to figure out if they grabbed the right person. Then they dropped him back off like it was a minor inconvenience.
You can call that a mistake if you want.
Minnesota is calling it what it is. A crime.
(Sources)
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