About 10 minutes later a man walks up to see whether he was successful in breaking it open.
He was not. The truck damaged the concrete, but the safe remained intact.
However, police said Tuesday that the would-be thief caused an estimated $10,000 damage to the shrine.
The shrine honors an Italian priest who was made a saint in 2002.
The Padre Pio shrine has been targeted by thieves at least two dozen times since the summer of 2005. This however is the first time that the brazen act of ramming the safe with a motor vehicle has happened. Evidence gathered to date indicates that the thefts and attempted thefts are related.
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