Dave Matthews Band says it is “horrified” over recent events in Minneapolis, Minnesota, adding it is “hard to believe this is America,” before calling the Trump White House “shameful.”
“We are horrified by the images coming out of Minneapolis. It’s hard to watch and hard to believe this is America,” the rock band declared in a statement posted to X on Monday.
“There is so much shameful dishonesty coming out of Washington right now,” Dave Matthews Band alleged, before asserting that “if ICE wasn’t in Minneapolis, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti would still be alive today.”
Notably, Renee Good was fatally shot by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this month, after the agitator rammed her vehicle into an agent.
Alex Pretti, on the other hand, was shot by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent as a result of a physical altercation in Minneapolis on Saturday — not by an ICE officer.
“None of this makes sense and it’s incredibly cruel. We must find a better way,” Dave Matthews Band continued in its statement.
The band concluded by announcing that The Bama Works Foundation, a charity founded by Dave Matthews Band in 1999, “has made donations to the ACLU and the ACLU of Minnesota” to show their support.
As Breitbart News reported, the limited facts available at the time of Saturday’s fatal shooting of Pretti by a Border Patrol agent that so far have not been disputed indicate he was armed during the struggle that led up to the shooting.
Moreover, CNN has since reported that Pretti had “a gun” in his waistband during Saturday’s brawl.
The CBP Use of Force policy, meanwhile, is grounded in constitutional law, as interpreted by federal courts, and requires that any use of force be “objectively reasonable” based on the circumstances as the agent perceived them at the moment force was applied.
This standard is determined by what the agent knew or perceived when he pulled the trigger, not by public opinion influenced by politicians, nor by a retrospective, onerous review of video footage.
The policy states that anytime an agent has a reasonable belief a person “poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the agent or another person,” the primary hurdle to using deadly force is cleared and the action is authorized.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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