Drop-in doughnuts

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 19, 2001 | by Sean Paige

No one begrudges a cop his or her doughnuts, but questions are being asked in Albuquerque about one recent case in which a pair of the city's finest dropped in for a box of Krispy Kremes in a police helicopter.

Eyewitnesses said a Kiowa OH-58 chopper owned by the Albuquerque Police Department -- which reportedly costs taxpayers about $80 an hour to fuel and fly, not including salaries and benefits for two crew members -- came swooping in out of the night sky one recent evening. It circled several times around its intended target, then alighted in a nearby lot while a passenger went in for a box of doughnuts. Mission accomplished, the chopper buzzed off, sounding the siren by way of bidding onlookers adieu.

While most observers seemed to take the sighting in stride, a doughnutshop employee who watched the scene unfold wasn't so amused. "I was angry, and I'm still a little angry," the witness told the Albuquerque Journal. "That's my tax dollars, your tax dollars. You've got no business flying in to get doughnuts."

Naturally, such complaints have led to a police investigation. "Between the two of them, I don't know how they decided that was a good idea," a police-department official told the newspaper. "If they violated policy or procedure, they're going to get disciplined for it. We've worked too hard to make this a professional unit to let lack of common sense tear us down."

SEAN PAIGE IS A WRITER FOR Insight.