The Side of the Story They Buried — Tou Thao, Minneapolis Police Officer

 Former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao gave a long-form interview on the Yada Yada Gold podcast and spoke with unusual directness about four things that still get little sustained attention: the plea deal he rejected, what he was doing and thinking on May 25, 2020, the reality of federal prison, and the incentives that reward those who adopt the preferred narrative.

Minneapolis Police Officer Tou Thao in 2020 via ABCNews

The Plea Deal

Thao says Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office offered him a deal that would have meant little to no prison time. He turned it down. In his telling, accepting it would have required him to affirm a version of events he did not believe was true. He frames the decision as a matter of principle and faith: he wanted to be able to go to sleep knowing he had done what he believed was right, and he would not allow someone else’s judgment to be forced on him if he considered it incorrect. Standing firm under pressure, he says, is part of that faith.

He is open about the cost. Refusing the deal meant more time away from his wife and young children. Other officers, he notes, made different calculations. He could not. In court years earlier he had already put the same stance on the record, telling a judge that accepting a plea would be “a lie and a sin.” The podcast version adds the political context: the offer came in a period when making the case quietly disappear would have been convenient.

The Day Itself

Thao’s account of the arrest centers on his assigned role and his state of mind. He was handling crowd control—keeping bystanders at a distance, standard procedure when officers are dealing with a resistive subject. He says he trusted the officers who had hands on Floyd because they had sworn the same oath. One line he recalls directing at the gathering crowd: “This is why you don’t do drugs. There’s a man dying right over there, bro.”

In the federal trial the focus shifted to his mental state. Prosecutors argued that certain remarks showed he was directing or endorsing what the others were doing. Thao’s response is blunt: he was describing what he was thinking in the moment, not issuing orders. He returns repeatedly to the same principle that shaped the plea decision—he would not accept responsibility for actions that were not his, and he would not affirm a story he did not believe was accurate. The body-camera footage from his perspective was not released to the public for months. Thao and the hosts treat that delay as deliberate narrative management.

Prison and “If We Die, Then the Truth Dies”

Thao spent more than three years inside. He describes entering general population briefly before the threats became concrete. He was not surprised when Derek Chauvin was stabbed multiple times. In his view, people in higher places preferred the officers silenced. The line he uses is direct: if we die, then the truth dies. Once the last witnesses who refuse the official story are gone, the competing account disappears with them.

He chose not to have his wife and children visit. The searches, the environment, the images—he did not want those memories attached to them. He took the sentence one day at a time, leaning on faith rather than any expectation of earthly vindication. The “truth dies” remark is not melodrama. It is a practical observation about how inconvenient facts are handled when the people who carry them can be removed.

The Woke Narrative, Promotion, and the Walz Pardon

Thao is clearest when he talks about incentives. He says he could have taken the easy route—sided with the prevailing narrative, expressed the expected remorse, played ball. In that scenario, he believes he could have risen inside the department, possibly even to chief. He points to others who aligned with the story and were elevated. The system, as he experienced it, rewards those who stay inside the narrative and punishes those who step outside it.

He closes with the Tim Walz pardon of a Hmong man convicted of sexually abusing a young girl. Walz framed the crime in cultural terms. Thao calls that framing insulting to the Hmong community and notes the obvious contrast: the same political apparatus that pursued the officers with maximum force found room for leniency when it suited a different constituency. He treats the pardon as evidence of selective justice rather than consistent principle.

The interview does not ask listeners to declare Thao a hero. It records what one of the four officers says he saw, why he refused to say what was demanded of him, and what he believes the system actually rewards. In a culture that still treats the 2020 narrative as settled doctrine, that record is worth hearing.

Full episode: [VIDEO]