A 16-year-old waitress is currently hospitalised at a private city hospital after she was shot to the chin late Friday evening by a lone gunman, who posed as a customer and attempted to rob the Chinese restaurant where she works.
Onika Luke, of Lot 1 Vryheid’s Lust Public Road, East Coast Demerara (ECD), was rushed to the Woodlands Hospital, where she remained a patient up to yesterday afternoon in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
The attack occurred around 10.45 pm, during which Luke, who has been employed at the Lucky Chinese Restaurant, located at Better Hope, ECD, for a little over three months, was shot.
The bullet reportedly entered her throat, resulting in her being unable to speak.
The police, in a press release, said Luke was on duty when a man entered the restaurant and ordered a meal. According to the release, “while paying for the meal, the man held onto the hands of Luke, who was behind some grill, pulled out a firearm and demanded cash.
“Luke resisted and was shot to her chin by the man who escaped.”
Up to late yesterday afternoon, he had not been apprehended.
When Stabroek News visited the scene yesterday, the restaurant was closed for business and efforts to speak to the proprietor proved futile.
Rickford Ranjee related to this newspaper that he had just retired to bed when his sister’s employer visited his home and informed him that she had been shot and was currently at the hospital.
According to Ranjee, he immediately rushed to the hospital, where he saw his sister being attended by doctors.
Being unable to speak, she wrote a note to him relating what transpired. The note, he said, was taken into possession by the police.
Ranjee said when he asked Luke if she knew the perpetrator, she wrote and told him that it was a man who had reportedly threatened her a few weeks ago. He related that Luke had called her sister while at work on one occasion and informed her that a man had just visited the restaurant and threatened to kidnap her.
“She call and tell my sister to let my brother and me go for she because the boy just tell she he notice she does go home really late and he will kidnap her,” the brother related.
According to him, the threat was never reported to the police as Luke had took it as a joke. He also said that as far as he is aware, Luke only knows the individual by seeing him around.
