Saturday’s ugly events in Charlottesville culminated in a neo-Nazi protestor plowing his car into a crowd of his adversaries. He allegedly killed Heather Heyer, a young woman who had been excercising her right to free speech. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is rightly giving a high priority to the investigation, and President Trump has finally gotten around to issuing a proper condemnation of the white nationalists who brought their hate-fest to Charlottesville.

Yet beyond this, Saturday’s events represent a serious failure of government. Neither the death of Heyer nor the general mayhem were inevitable. They could have been prevented if authorities there had confronted the situation sensibly.