Girl, 9, shot while sleeping ...cops hunt relative

CENTRAL Division police were up to late evening searching for a relative who they believe can assist them with their investigations into a shooting incident in which a nine-year-old girl was wounded while sleeping early yesterday.

The child, Alicia Lewis, is warded at the Mount Hope Medical Sciences Complex in a satisfactory condition, police sources told Newsday. Reports are that around 3 am yesterday, Lewis, a student of the Chaguanas RC School, of Dass Trace Extension, Enterprise, was at  home asleep on a couch in the living room with her elder sister, Angela Lewis, 26. Relatives, according to the report, heard a car pull up.  This was followed by three loud explosions, said by the police to be gunshots.  After the gunshots were heard, police said the car drove off. It was then that relatives noticed that little Alicia was  bleeding from a gunshot wound to her right leg. 

The child was first rushed to the Chaguanas Accident and Emergency Department via an Emergency Health Services (EHS) ambulance. She was then transferred to the Mount Hope Medical Sciences Complex, where she remained up to late yesterday. A report was made and a party of officers under Cpl Glen McKenzie of the Chaguanas Criminal Investigations Department (CID), and including photographer PC Balkissoon and others visited the scene and conducted investigations. Asked what was the motive behind the shooting, senior officers said they were baffled, but were trying to locate a relative, since they believe their investigations will be helped tremendously by this person. No arrests had been made up to late evening and Cpl McKenzie is continuing investigations.