Shortly after police used spike strips to end a high-speed chase on Interstate 90 last July, the owner of the car immediately began pleading his innocence to officers.

Dash camera and body camera video obtained by 5 INVESTIGATES shows Phouthong Thongvanh getting out of the passenger side with his hands up.

“I told him to stop! I was yelling at him, fighting with him in the car,” Thongvanh can be heard saying to a Worthington police officer in the body camera footage. 

While officers arrested the driver and another passenger, Thongvanh, 41, did not end up facing any criminal charges.

But police told him they were still taking his 2014 Nissan Altima.

“We’re seizing it now,” Officer Mark Riley can be heard saying in the body camera video. “It’s State of Minnesota’s.”

Thongvanh later said he did not immediately understand what police were telling him.

“I thought they were just taking it, like impounding it or something,” he said. “I didn’t think they were going to keep it.”

The Nobles County Attorney filed a civil action to permanently take Thongvanh’s car through the state’s controversial forfeiture process.

It’s an example of how police in Minnesota can still seize and keep the property of people even when they are not charged with a crime, despite recent reforms to help protect “innocent owners.”

Critics say it also reinforces concerns that the practice disproportionately impacts low-income communities and people of color, especially in Nobles County, which has been repeatedly accused of violating the civil rights of minorities.

“It’s those people who are hit the hardest when their car or a small amount of money is seized from them, and that can sometimes put their lives into a tailspin,” said Dan Alban, senior attorney with the nonprofit Institute for Justice.

‘Reasonable steps’

Thongvanh, who is Laotian, said he had never heard of forfeiture when a friend asked him for a late-night ride from Sioux Falls, S.D. to Worthington on the Fourth of July last year. 

“I was getting really sleepy,” Thongvanh said.

Before they completed the hour-long trip, Thongvanh said he asked his friend to take over the driving. Soon after Thongvanh woke up, he said the friend had picked up a woman, and police were trying to pull them over.

“They look in the mirror (and say), ‘hey, there’s a cop!’ And they f—ing take off in my car,” Thongvanh said. “I told them ‘stop,’ and I’m thinking, ‘what did they do wrong?’”

Court records show the friend, Steven Xanaxay, and the woman in the car, Maria Shantel LeClaire, both had warrants out for their arrest.

They were eventually convicted, but prosecutors dropped unrelated charges against Thongvanh.

When Nobles County filed a civil action to take Thongvanh’s car through forfeiture, a judge ruled that Thongvanh was “not an innocent owner as he was present in the vehicle” during the police chase and “took no reasonable steps to prevent” the crime. 

“What’s a reasonable way to stop them?” Thongvanh said. “I kept yelling and yelling at him, but there’s no other way to make him stop. If I hit him, what’s going to happen? We’re all going to die in there.”

Worthington Police declined to comment about Thongvanh’s case or any others. The Nobles County Attorney’s Office did not respond to multiple requests from 5 INVESTIGATES.

History of criticism

After 5 INVESTIGATES highlighted similar cases in 2020, state lawmakers responded to growing calls for change and reformed parts of Minnesota’s controversial forfeiture law.

The law allows police and prosecutors to keep up to 90% of the proceeds.

The reforms included prohibitions on police taking small amounts of cash as well as additional protections for “innocent owners” of vehicles. 

In Nobles County, a judge previously criticized police and prosecutors for using civil forfeiture to try to keep a woman’s car after her nephew was pulled over and arrested.

 “I’m baffled as to why the county is proceeding with this forfeiture action,” said Hon Terry Vajgrt during a hearing on the case. “I think that this proceeding, with all due respect, has been a bit of an exercise in what seems to me to be a ridiculous conclusion.”

The judge ordered the vehicle to be returned to its owner.

The City of Worthington later paid $60,000 to settle an excessive force lawsuit after dash camera video showed a police officer repeatedly striking the driver as he was pulled from the car.

It is one of several cases where Worthington or Nobles County has been accused of discrimination in policing. 

“Generally, what we’ve seen is a disproportionate policing of minority communities,” said Ian Bratlie, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s supported not just in our observations, but statistically, we’ve seen that.”

‘Hit the hardest’

A 5 INVESTIGATES analysis of every forfeiture case in Nobles County over the last decade revealed people of color were involved in at least half of them. 

Dan Alban, the attorney for the Institute for Justice, said that finding mirrors national studies. 

“There is ample data nationwide from a number of states, a number of cities, showing that there is a racially disproportionate impact from civil forfeiture,” Alban said. 

In 2021, the Institute for Justice published a survey of “forfeiture victims” in Philadelphia which found forfeitures were “clustered in predominantly minority and low-income areas.”

“It’s those people who are hit the hardest when their car or a small amount of money is seized from them, and that can sometimes put their lives into a tailspin,” Alban said. 

Thongvanh said losing his car cost him hours at his job as he tried to save money to buy the vehicle back from Nobles County.

“After all that, I couldn’t pay my rent, and that’s when the eviction started,” Thongvanh said. “But nobody cares about that.”

In March, Thongvanh showed 5 INVESTIGATES where his Nissan Altima continues to sit behind the Prairie Justice Center in Worthington, along with more than a dozen other vehicles seized by police. 

Thongvanh says seeing the car reminds him of how much he has lost after that one night nearly a year ago. 

“I’m never going to forget it,” Thongvanh said. “It ruined my life.”