A policeman was shot and wounded with an AK-47 while trying to escape from a gang of five men during a car chase in Germiston, Gauteng police said.
The Ekurhuleni metro police officer and his female colleague were on patrol in Denlee, near Germiston Lake, on Thursday around 11am when they saw a Mercedes Benz with five men and decided to pursue them, Chief Superintendent Wilfred Kgasago said in a statement.
A white VW Polo however blocked the patrol car between it and the Mercedes. The officers got out of their car. The five men, armed with rifles, got out of the Mercedes, surrounded them and took the female officer's pistol.
The policeman tried running into the nearby Lakeview shopping centre, but was shot and injured in the right shoulder. The bullet passed through his body and hit a parked car. He was taken to Union Hospital in Alberton.
The men escaped in the Mercedes, which was later abandoned on Rand Airport Road. They were still at large.
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