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tl;dr: Crime is legal in the state of Minnesota as long as you do it to support a left-wing cause.
On June 10, 2020, activists toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus near the Minnesota state capitol. Out of the dozens who participated, only their leader was charged with a crime, and he was sentenced to community service, which he served by writing an essay about why it was good that the statue was gone. The estimated cost of the damage to the statue was around $400,000.
In March 2025, an employee of the state of Minnesota was caught vandalizing several Teslas, while on the clock working for the state. The total damages were over $20,000. He was not charged with any crime, and his punishment for doing this while being paid by the state of Minnesota is a single day suspension from work.
In February 2026, activists installed at the capitol, with the state's permission, a sculpture reading "Prosecute ICE", made out of frozen water. The cost to have it manufactured was $6000. A right wing activist kicked it over, and is now charged with felony destruction of property, facing up to five years in prison.
In January 2026, a group of activists stormed a church service to protest ICE. None were charged with a crime by the state of Minnesota, the state attorney general called the event a first amendment activity.
In 2019, a woman was investigated, but not charged, with violating the state law prohibiting harassment of churchgoers, for recording video from a public street of people entering and leaving a mosque. The woman sued the state to challenge the constitutionality of the law on first amendment grounds. The same state attorney general submitted a brief in favor of the constitutionality of the law, and argued that filming the mosque constituted harassment under that law and was not protected by the first amendment.
Throughout early 2026, activists have been establishing checkpoints, where drivers are stopped while their vehicles are checked against a database of vehicles used by ICE. No arrests have been made.
Surely he still has to pay damages to the car owners?
He wasn't charged because he agreed to pay restitution. Most jurisdictions have diversion programs for first time offenders where they're given what amounts to probation except rather than complete the probation after conviction they agree to do it immediately, and the charges are dropped once the conditions are complied with. The ice sculpture guy may be offered a similar deal, though it should be noted that that just happened the other day, so one wouldn't expect the case to be resolved for a while.
This is usually called a "pre-prosecution diversion" program or PPD. For a well-known (fictional) example, this is what happened to Saul in Better Call Saul that led to his law license being suspended for a year
It's called different things in different states. In Pennsylvania it's called ARD, or accelerated rehabilitative disposition. It's mostly used for DUIs, but other categories of offenses are eligible as well.
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