Not to be outdone by Joshua Leyk and the Kootenai County Sheriff, the Idaho State Police have arrested a minority of their own near the Rose Lake Exit on I-90. On October 10, 2019, Trooper Chris Cottrell of the Idaho State Police stopped and arrested Xuewen Lin of Missouri for trafficking marijuana.

“He was originally pulled over because the trooper thought he was black,” said an ISP spokesman. “The Trooper on scene quickly had to pivot when he found out he had actually pulled over an Oriental.”

According to Court records, Lin was pulled over for failing to use his blinker for 5 seconds and for having too dark of window tint. “The window tint darkened his skin color, and this is why we thought he was of Negroid decent. This is exactly why we have these window tint laws on the books. We don’t want people disguising their race.” said a Trooper on scene.

Once the Troopers discovered Lin’s ethnicity they pursued their standard line of questioning. “Where are you heading today, sir? Do you mind if we search your vehicle? Is your father a GI?”

When Lin refused to allow them to search the vehicle and asked for an attorney, the Troopers quickly upgraded the charges from minor infractions to a DWA. A DWA, or Driving While Asian, is a Class 3 Felony in Idaho. It is an arrest-able offense punishable by up to 5 years in the internment camps where Japanese prisoners were held in World War II.

“In this case, he would probably be sent down to the Kooskia Internment Camp for retraining and reeducation,” the ISP Spokesman said. “With his small hands he could be put to work bringing iPhone manufacturing back to America.”

Once Lin was cited with DWA, the Troopers were able to hold him on scene while a drug dog arrived. “At this point, we don’t give a shit about what we actually pulled him over for. That’s all pretext anyways. What we’re really looking for is drugs. Since he’s Chinese we thought it was almost certainly Fentanyl but it turned out to be our old friend Mary Jane. Or as the Chinese say it, Mawee Zane. You know, because they can’t pronounce R’s and J’s.”

This isn’t the first time Trooper Cottrell has used a pretext stop. In the Treasure Valley, Cottrell used a pretext stop to search a trailer of William Esbensen. Despite a drug dog not alerting to any illicit drugs, Cottrell claimed he could smell a strong odor of marijuana coming from the trailer. He used this as his probable cause to search the trailer. Cottrell recovered one joint and told the man he was going to jail. At the same time, he stole the man’s briefcase and had to be ordered by a judge to give it back. Shortly after, he was transferred to North Idaho where he used the same tactics on Lin.

We caught up with Prosecutor Barry McHugh to ask if it’s suspicious that only minorities have been pulled over along this stretch of I-90, both on thinly veiled pre-text stops. “Not really. Idaho Officers are trained to look for things that are out of the ordinary. In Idaho, if your skin doesn’t match the snow on the ground then it’s unusual. Our Troopers need to investigate that. If you don’t like that, you need to know and abide by our archaic traffic laws that are designed as pre-text covers for racially based stops.”

Ben Wolfinger agreed, “It’s easy to arm chair quarterback guys like Leyk and Cottrell pulling over Negro’s and Orientals, but in the end the results speak for themselves. We got pounds of that nasty marijuana off the street. Just because the marijuana may or may not have been put there by one of our Troopers or Deputies is irrelevant. What’s important is that we’re making Idaho Great Again.”

Last week Lin was convicted of all charges and sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 3 years iphone assembly in Kooskia. His attorneys were unavailable for comment. According to a close friend, they were out having drinks with the Prosecutor and the Judge.