PARIS — On Tuesday,  two men burst into a church in bucolic Normandy during morning mass. They took five people hostage, slit the throat of the aged priest, and stabbed nearly to death one of the parishioners before, finally, the police killed the attackers.

French President François Hollande went to the scene of the crime in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where it was said both terrorists had cried out “Allah Akbar,” God is great, while they did their sordid work in the old Romanesque church. This was “the cowardly murder of the parish priest by two terrorists claiming to be with Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS, or the Islamic State.

And once again we learn that the police had been aware at least one of the killers had wanted to travel to Syria and join ISIS. He had tried twice, been jailed, and then was released with an electronic ankle bracelet. And once again they’d somehow missed the warning signs that this killing was coming.

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