Serpico and Solomon

Some may be familiar with the case of Frank Serpico, a former New York detective whose experiences facing police corruption were dramatized in the Hollywood film Serpico (1973) starring Al Pacino. But we need no Hollywood blockbuster to understand the life and times of a man who faced extreme hardship for following the rules and attempting to “swim upstream” against a morally corrupt system.

Frank Serpico, a native-born New Yorker, joined the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in 1959, serving first as a patrolman and later as an undercover plainclothes investigator. During Serpico’s time on the police force, he witnessed widespread corruption within the NYPD. His fellow officers accepted bribes from criminals, gamblers, and drug dealers and commonly adhered to what is called the blue wall of silence, whereby officers refuse to report on or investigate misconduct on the part of their colleagues.

Serpico loved the job and all the police force stood for, but he could not stand by and watch the corruption continue. Eventually, he gathered enough credible evidence to submit a report of the corruption to the higher-ups of the city government. Three years went by with no corrective action taken. Serpico continued his vigilance in being an honest cop; he did not participate or engage in any of the wrongdoing. Not until the New York Times ran a front-page story, with input from Serpico, did Mayor John V. Lindsay “form the Knapp Commission… the most extensive investigation of police wrongdoing in the city’s history,” which “exposed a pattern of entrenched corruption and cover-up that helped usher in reform.”

Before testifying, Serpico was involved in a raid on a drug deal in Brooklyn. As he attempted to make an arrest in the apartment where the deal was going to take place, he was “shot in the face… while screaming for backup from his fellow officers, who then failed to immediately call for an ambulance.” He was helped only after an older man who lived in the building found him injured and called for emergency services. This incident raised some people’s suspicions about whether Serpico was betrayed in an attempt to prevent him from testifying, but no formal investigation of this possibility was carried out.

Serpico’s own assessment of the outcome was summed up by a statement he made some forty years after the investigation: “An honest cop still can’t find a place to go and complain without fear of recrimination. The blue wall will always be there because the system supports it” (“Serpico on Serpico,” New York Times, January 22, 2010).

Although Frank Serpico came on the scene some 2,800 years after King Solomon, he lived up to some of the same principles recorded for our benefit in the book of Proverbs. Solomon warns his son not to be persuaded by those who are going in the wrong direction by living in opposition to God’s word. Yes, they promise secrecy, riches, and sharing the wealth by dishonest gain, but in the end such activities will take their life (Proverbs 1:8–19). The prophet Isaiah, roughly 200 years later, echoed the same wisdom Solomon shared, concluding that bad actors will have no peace and will likely fall victim to their own methods (Isaiah 59:8–9).

The book of Ecclesiastes gives us encouragement, saying that though the wicked look like they prosper now, their days are numbered—but for those who fear God, it will be well in the end (Ecclesiastes 8:10–13).

There is a righteous Judge poised not just to interrupt the way of the wicked, but to reverse the course of their lives through overwhelming power and inestimable love and patience. The Bible reveals that this time will become a reality during the reign of Jesus Christ on this earth (Revelation 20:1–6). God’s people gather annually to celebrate this coming time during the Feast of Tabernacles, a period of seven days that pictures the 1,000-year period of humanity’s peace and prosperity.

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Discover more about what God has planned for you by ordering or reading online our free resource The Holy Days: God’s Master Plan, and watch in the meantime the telecast “Let’s Fix the World!”