Marlon John, 26, of Edinburgh, East Berbice who was shot above his left eye is in a stable condition at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
A suspect from the village who was arrested in connection with the incident is still in police custody.
John who was shot around 2 am on Sunday while at a female friend’s house told Stabroek News from his hospital bed yesterday that the doctors are still unable to determine the extent of his injured eye.
The swelling was preventing him from opening his eye and efforts by a doctor to actually force it open were unsuccessful. He said the doctors are still monitoring his condition and will decide if he has to be sent to the Georgetown Public Hospital for further treatment.
Recounting the incident, John told this newspaper that he was asleep at his friend’s house when he was awakened by her six-year-old daughter calling out, ‘mommy come!’
He said he woke up the girl’s mother and told her, “Hear yuh daughter calling you.” He said the woman did not respond immediately as she was not accustomed to her daughter calling her during the night.
However, after the child persisted they opened the bedroom door and were in the hallway when they noticed that the louvre panes to the veranda were missing.
By the time they realized that someone was in the house the gunman emerged from the kitchen where he had been hiding with the child and pointed his gun at John.
The gunman, who was said to be masked, let go of the child and her mother grabbed her and together with John they ran back into the bedroom.
He said he got down on the floor while his friend and her daughter sat nearby and he braced the door shut as the gunman tried desperately to open it.
All the time they kept screaming “thief!” But the gunman told him “’is you ah looking fuh… yuh remember what you and [name of another man] did to my brother?’”
He said he responded, “Boy is not me do anything to your brother.” Nevertheless the gunman fired a shot which pierced the door, wounding him.
Bleeding profusely, he grabbed the bed sheet to absorb the blood as he kept hollering, “ow me get shot.”
The gunman refused to leave and insisted that he was there to kill him.
At that stage the terrified woman decided to remove the jewellery she was wearing and handed them to the man, who then fled.
A relative had told this newspaper that the bandit had apparently ransacked the bedroom of the friend’s mother and took a quantity of jewellery.
The man then went into the child’s bedroom and tapped her on her abdomen with the gun butt to wake her. He then demanded that she call her mother.
The relative had said too that the bullet grazed the bone above John’s eye and that the swelling had prevented doctors from determining the extent of the injury.
Meanwhile a police press release said that the police are investigating the incident. It added that a warhead and a 9 mm. spent shell were recovered at the scene by the police.
