Police chopper landing in mall parking lot for KFC causes a stir

A Facebook user, Bill Harrington, the deputy leader of the Freedom Front Plus in the Eastern Cape, wrote that he witnessed an SAPS helicopter landing in the parking lot of a Komani shopping centre this week just so that the pilot could buy KFC for lunch.

“This was not an official police practice run and/or for any police duty concern, other than for this police pilot to land, switch his blades off and walk nonchalant 30 metres into a chicken outlet – thus, not to investigate a crime scene or whatsoever, but to queue in line for a quick takeaway and some gravy (train), with it,” Harrington wrote.

“After this police pilot got his food parcel, and paid for it, he walked out, climbed back into his police helicopter, switch on the blades and swiftly flew away.”

Harrington was concerned that the pilot could surely not have had permission to land in a busy parking lot, “with cars and people all around and not just putting his own life at danger, but those all around him”.

“He came uninvited and without pre-arranging his landing time or requesting to cordon off the area he will be needing to land.”

Some of the reactions to his post attempted to dispute that the aircraft was in fact a police chopper, or that the man was an officer.

However, Harrington maintained that he had witnessed the incident himself and uploaded another photograph that showed the police identification of the vehicle more clearly.

A number of users shared Harrington’s outrage at the incident.

Komani (formerly Queenstown) was in the news earlier this year for another KFC-related story, when the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality was featured in a segment of Carte Blanche.