This just in from Excite oddly enough news...

October 8, 2001

Hare Krishna.

Police Use Helicopter for Doughnut Run

Updated: Mon, Oct 08 7:14 AM EDT

ALBUQUERQUE (Reuters) - An Albuquerque policeman and his pilot face

disciplinary measures after using a police helicopter this week to swoop in

for a midnight snack of doughnuts, officials said on Friday.

The officer and the civilian pilot were on night patrol over the city in a

Kiowa OH-58 helicopter when they landed in a vacant lot next to a Krispy

Kreme doughnut store around 1 a.m. on Thursday morning.

"The contracted pilot and a police officer landed the copter early in the

morning, ran in and grabbed a dozen, came back out and took off,"

Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Brian McCutcheon said.

"I don't know whose brain child it was, but it's quite an ugly child," he

said.

McCutcheon said the event was being investigated as a possible misuse of

city funds as well as for safety reasons, although he added there was no

specific protocol for this case because it had ever happened before.

"We've been given no reasonable excuse as to why they would even think they

could do this. But there could be some very serious ramifications," he said.

An eyewitness told the Albuquerque Journal that he saw the APD helicopter

circle the Krispy Kreme and land in a nearby dirt field.

"I was angry, and I'm still kind of angry. That's my tax dollars, your tax

dollars. You've got no business flying in to get doughnuts," said Keith

Turner, who works nearby and was taking a smoke break when he saw the

chopper swoop in,

The cost to the department of running a Kiowa, including fuel and

maintenance, is $80 an hour, McCutcheon said.

A Krispy Kreme employee who asked not to be identified said he didn't see

why people were making a big deal of the unusual doughnut run.

"Cops got to eat, too," he said.

Hare Krishna

your servant, Balarama Dasa, from (oddly enough) Albuquerque, NM

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