IT was like a scene from an action movie, one that a 16-year-old schoolgirl would rather not have taken part in. On September 13 the schoolgirl, who requested anonymity, got into a car that was not licensed to operate as a taxi and soon found herself unwittingly involved in a high-speed car chase that ended with her nursing a gunshot wound in her left buttock.

“I took the taxi in Cross Roads, where the Waterhouse bus loads – at the taxi stand right behind the Waterhouse buses,” she said.

The teenager was hurrying to get home that afternoon, and waited impatiently for the ‘taxi’ to load.

“Eventually, some other people followed along and came into the taxi. There was one [passenger] at the front and three at the back,” she recalled.

What happened next will haunt the 16-year-old for the rest of her life.

“We were about to drive off when we saw the police in a marked [police] car. She said the cop approached the driver and asked to see his documents.

But “the driver just reverse down the road – I really don’t remember the name of the road,” she told the Observer.

“The driver reverse down the road and the police started to chase us,” she continued.

“The driver reverse all the way down to Arnett Gardens, across Lyndhurst Road. After we reversed and reach in Arnett Gardens, I saw this white, unmarked car by the roundabout. I was behind the driver, and while he was reversing I was looking both sides, because how he was reversing, trust me, an accident could happen anytime. Then he spun the car around and started driving forward.”

According to the schoolgirl, the people in the white unmarked car were dressed in “blue clothing” and had “guns pointing” out of the windows.

“I saw the unmarked white car and it was a little bit to my right. After a while I heard gunshots. And then I said ‘Jesas peas, dem start fire gunshot now’, and as I said that I didn’t know that I had been shot. After I realised that I got the gunshot, I say to the driver, “Stop nuh! Please! Me get shot! Me get shot!”

Upon hearing this, she said the driver stopped the car abruptly in the vicinity of the Arnett Gardens football field, and everybody ran from the vehicle.

“One of the passengers hold me and said ‘everything all right’,” she continued.

“I wasn’t crying at the time, because no eye water wasn’t coming, but I was very disturbed. And then I saw the police went [drove] away.

Shortly afterwards, the schoolgirl said she saw several people running out from nearby houses. They were curious and wanted to know what had happened.

She told the Observer that the police who had chased them in the marked vehicle made no attempt to arrest the taxi driver.

In fact, she said it was the taxi man who took her to the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) where she was able to get treatment.

“I thought the police were going to take me to the hospital cause they were turning towards the car, but they didn’t stop. Then he [the taxi driver] just said, ‘Mek me carry you to the hospital.'”

She maintains that the police could not have missed seeing her wound because she was bleeding profusely, and fragments of flesh stuck to her pants.

She said the doctors told her that the bullet entered and exited her left buttock, leaving bullet fragments in the wound.

She told the Observer that although several police officers later visited her at the hospital and took statements from her concerning the incident, she has heard nothing to date.

Nevertheless, several weeks later she is still counting her blessings. Because, while she has a hard time sitting down properly, and is still bothered by the trauma of the incident, she has managed to keep a positive outlook.

“All I have to say is this, when you trust God and have faith in Him, all things are possible. God says you must love your enemies and pray for them so that is what I’m going to do,” she added.