Ramsey County officials are suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, seeking evidence related to potential crimes committed by federal agents against a St. Paul man during Operation Metro Surge, including kidnapping, false imprisonment and burglary.
On Jan. 18, immigration agents forcibly entered the home of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a U.S. citizen, without a warrant, according to the lawsuit. The agents handcuffed Thao, removed him from his home in just Crocs and boxers, and questioned him in the car for about an hour before returning him to his house. A Reuters photo of agents removing Thao became an iconic symbol of the brutal tactics used by immigration agents during Operation Metro Surge, which DHS has described as the largest immigration enforcement action in its history.
On April 13, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced his office sent a letter — called a Touhy demand — to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, formally requesting information relating to the case.
In May, the federal government requested extra time to respond to the county’s request for information, Choi said, but has since gone silent.
“Our hope … is to compel the cooperation and the sharing of information, so that we in Ramsey County can do, very simply, an investigation,” Choi said during a press conference Wednesday announcing the lawsuit. “To get to the truth, to evaluate whether or not Minnesota law has been broken, and to uphold the rule of law wherever the facts take us and what the law prescribes, and to do that without fear or favor.”
The Ramsey County officials are seeking the identities of the federal agents who entered Thao’s home and forcibly removed him. The agents wore masks and swapped out their license plates, obscuring their identities from both the public and local investigators, according to the lawsuit.
In the complaint, Ramsey County officials pointed to several recent examples of cooperation between federal and local law enforcement agencies: the investigation into attacks on Minnesota lawmakers last summer; the response to the Annunciation school shooting; and prosecutions of gang members.
“This shift from historical practices of cooperation is reflected in Surge related cases in Hennepin County, where federal officials initially agreed to cooperate, but then withdrew cooperation, even blocked crime scene access,” the lawsuit reads.
(After months of stonewalling, drawing a similar lawsuit from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in March, federal authorities this week handed over evidence related to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the shooting of Venezuelan national Julio Sosa-Celis.)
The lawsuit requests that a federal judge order the federal government to cooperate with local authorities, fulfill their requests for evidence and cover the county’s legal fees.
