I heard a story with this title on NPR about a year ago. It moved me. A pregnant woman, with memories of 9/11, anxious about the airplane she was on, about to take off. She confides to the stranger next to her, “Don’t you ever get nervous?” And the man looks straight into her eyes, with a face full of compassion.

“Most people are good.”

Hearing this was a transformative experience for the woman. She and her husband ended up using this phrase to help their young sons think about the world they were growing up in.

My mind came back to this story on the evening after Renee Nichole Good was shot in the face, point blank, by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. I felt compelled to watch all the videos online, to see the murderer run alongside the car, firing additional shots. He clearly was not in danger, clearly not firing in self-defense as the government we fund with our tax dollars tried to claim.

The murder of this woman by our government is an utter tragedy. What I’ve read indicated Renee had a six-year old child. Renee had just dropped the child off at school before the ICE agent shot her. Stuffed toy animals can be seen on the dash of the passenger side of her car. I read that the child’s father had previously died. So now, there is a six-year old who had to be picked up at school and be told that his mother is also gone.

And then we have the shooter. From the way I interpret the videos I am assuming Renee was substantially impaired immediately after being shot because the car seems to careen on its own and crash immediately into another car. In the cell phone video I’ve seen, the shooter walks casually over to the vehicle. Then he casually walks back to his ICE vehicle as local residents yell “Shame!” and “Murderer!”

All of this was so hard to watch. It is so hard to believe we are living in a country where things like this can happen. And it leads some people to the point of view that, “Yep, they will do this and they will get away with it, just because they can.”

It is that defeatism that we cannot abide. We can and ought to be filled with righteous rage. That is why it was such a relief to hear Jacob Frey, the mayor of the city, deliver this message to ICE: “Get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” It was so relieving to hear Jen Psaki and others in the media say straightforwardly that the Trump administration was lying about the situation. It was so helpful to hear truth speak to power.

But to me, it is also critical to remember that most people are good. People were already out on the street where Renee would be shot, blowing whistles to alert and protect their neighbors. They had already pulled out their phone cameras to document the unfolding tragedy. They confronted the ICE agents for what they had done. Similar acts of incredible courage happened first in Chicago, then also in Charlotte. Seeing the goodness of these neighbors reminds us that we have allies in the fight against this morally evil administration. Knowing this gives us courage to stand up against the monstrousness of the circumstances we are living in.

When an event like the murder of Renee Nichole Good happens, we cannot turn away. But neither should we allow the horror of this situation paralyze us. So let us put ourselves in the position of the woman in the NPR story. Let’s feel the man next to her look her square in the eyes as he speaks the profound truth, full of compassion, that “most people are good.”

And let that become a seed of our own compassion and courage.