Police urged to guard synagogues as Florida deputy resigns after Nazi salute, N-word, illegal tracking.

As it ran on the front

Read these two next to each other. One: with the High Holy Days starting September 11th, law enforcement groups are urging more police patrols at Jewish schools and synagogues across the country, because the threat is real enough that somebody thought it needed saying out loud, in public, to police departments. Two: a Florida deputy — sheriff's office had called him 'deputy of the year,' that's the actual title, that happened — resigned after it came out he used a license-plate camera network to track his ex, used a racial slur, and performed a Nazi salute.

Same institution, same week, same country. The patrol request and the resignation are not the same story, but they are the same problem wearing two hats. You cannot ask a community to trust more officers around its schools and synagogues while the officer of the year down in Florida was using government surveillance equipment to stalk a private citizen and doing a salute you do not accidentally fall into. Flock cameras — the license plate readers — exist, officially, to find stolen cars and missing persons. They do not have a setting for 'track my ex.' Somebody had to build that workaround himself, on the clock, with the badge on.…