Duran Duran and Dave Matthews are among the artists criticising US President Donald Trump‘s administration after an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis.
Renee Nicole Good was killed on January 7 by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, which triggered widespread protests across the country. Good, a prize-winning poet with a wife and three children, was killed during a large-scale immigration enforcement operation.
She was a volunteer in a network of “neighbourhood patrols” keeping track of ICE operations in Minneapolis and was shot in her car by a federal agent.
In the lengthy video message posted on Dave Matthews Band’s official social channels, Matthews opened by saying how “grateful” he was for his community and neighbours. “I think about how lucky I’ve been in my life, here in this land. And so, then I think about the way I repay it, and the way I repay it is with taxes. They can raise my taxes, as far as I’m concerned,” Matthews said.
He then detailed what he didn’t want his tax dollars to be used for. “I don’t want my taxes to pay for ICE, to masked thugs to roam our streets and terrorise our communities and rip families apart. We should be taking care of each other. We should be minding each other. We should be housing the homeless. We shouldn’t be, you know, throwing people to the ground.”
The singer then spoke about Good and the Trump administration’s response to the shooting. “Which brings me to Renee Nicole Good. Murdered in front of her fellow citizens in Minneapolis, murdered in the streets. And no matter what narrative this administration is trying to sell us, we can see the videos,” Matthews said.
“Maybe if they show you one and they slow it down and they tell you where to look, you might think, maybe there’s a chance, maybe there’s a chance that the gunman was felt threatened. But from most angles, near and far, it looks like she was trying to get away, and he shot her three times in the head, murdered in cold blood.”
The singer continued, “This administration, these people who are trying to tell us not to believe what we see. It is so horrific. I don’t understand how you can claim that [Good] was ramming their cars, or that she was attacking them. There’s nothing to suggest that. And it’s mind-boggling and it’s deeply upsetting. To me and to so many people, and we can’t just let it slide.”
Matthews then named members of the Trump administration and called them all “just deeply, deeply dishonest people. Cowardly, shameful. Fuck them. They are revolting.” He then closed out his video message by saying, “These are dark times. Fuck ICE.”
Duran Duran also paid tribute to Good during a concert in Sacramento, California, on Friday (January 9), dedicating their song ‘Ordinary World’ to her, per Billboard.
“We believe that people in this world have a right to live their lives in peace and lives of freedom and happiness in their own country,” frontman Simon Le Bon told the audience. “For all the ordinary people in this world, we wish upon you an ordinary world.”
Neil Young has also commented on the shooting, urging Americans to “rise up” against ICE, while Billie Eilish took to her Instagram to share several posts condemning the organisation and Joe Keery called out Trump for defending ICE after the death of Good.
Footage from the incident shows that seconds before the shooting, Good attempted to drive away from the confrontation. DHS officials have claimed that she had been trying to “run over” the officer with her vehicle.
In the wake of Good’s death, Minneapolis residents have rallied to mourn her loss and protest ICE’s presence in the city. Mayor Jacob Frey called for federal agents to leave Minneapolis, saying in a press conference, “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
In other news, ICE are no longer running ads on Spotify, following concerns relating to the fatal shooting of Good.
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