I don’t eat in restaurants that often, though you would never know it from my blog posts. It seems every time I go out for dinner there is something memorable about the meal or the situation, and I can’t resist the urge to comment

Such was the case with a recent visit to Salvatore’s restaurant in Medford, Massachusetts. I really don’t remember much about the food (except that it was very tasty); it was the location that left an impression on me.

Salvatore’s is a Boston-area chain with five locations; the Medford restaurant is inside a former bank, which has been mostly remodeled to meet the needs of diners. However they left the vault intact. That means you can eat inside it if you so desire.

I am sure lots of people do desire, just so they can say they ate at the site of the area’s biggest ever bank heist. In 1980, $20 million was stolen from the vault by thieves who came in through the vault ceiling (the hole is still there).

It was a crime full of twists, worthy of a movie. That was Hollywood’s impression also – Ed Asner starred in the made for television movie.

The twists? Small local bank branches don’t keep that much cash in their vaults. They don’t need it on a daily basis. A bank that size should have had two million dollars in its vault, not twenty. Turns out all that extra cash was there unofficially, deposited by the Mafia. Or so I was told by one of my dinner companions, who lives near one of the convicted robbers, the one who wrote the book on the crime (which is not in my local library) after serving time.

Stealing from the Mafia probably didn’t bother the guys who committed this particular bank theft. They were police officers. Sadly though, the escapade was not a sanctioned police operation. In this case the cops really were the robbers. Crime does not pay; they were caught, convicted and jailed.

As a society we are fortunate to have police forces with a high degree of integrity. Stories like this are exceptional because of their rarity, though they do happen more often than they should.

Thirty-five years ago, at the same time as this bank heist, I was a civilian employee of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when something similar occurred. The head of the Ottawa drug section was arrested for drug trafficking. He hadn’t been able to resist the temptation, especially since he could get his supply from drugs the police had already seized from his competitors. I’m sure that made for a very profitable business, but in the end crime didn’t pay for him either.

In a post-Christian society I wonder sometimes what motivates our police officers to do the right thing? Will we see this sort of thing happening more often? Will our trust in the police begin to erode? Is this happening already? The shared values we once had are pretty much gone. Our laws for the most part retain their Judeo-Christian roots, but it seems as if those roots have been shrinking for a while now. If the police don’t have a philosophical/theological understanding (and agreement) in the foundations of our laws, how can we expect them to enforce them? And how do we prevent those custodians of power from abusing their trust?

I don’t think it has become a serious issue yet, but I expect it to become one in the future. Now would be a good time to start the discussion, rather than waiting until we face a social crisis where police have lost their authority bestowed upon them as part of our social contract.