A 12-year-old school­boy was shot in the face when a gun­man fired ran­dom­ly at his moth­er's car as she drove past on the Beetham High­way on Thurs­day night. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 10.30 pm, Sher­ry Qui, of Sev­enth Av­enue, Barataria, was dri­ving her Toy­ota Corol­la along the east­bound lane when near the Ve­hi­cle Main­te­nance Com­pa­ny (Vm­cott), she saw a man with a gun in his hand.

Qui told po­lice the man point­ed the gun at her car and fired two shots. Qui's son Gor­don Lee, who was in the front pas­sen­ger seat, was hit in the face and the oth­er bul­let nar­row­ly missed the moth­er and son. Qui drove to the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion, where she re­port­ed the in­ci­dent. Po­lice took Lee to the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope. He re­mained ward­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion up to late yes­ter­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said that Lee, a Stan­dard Five stu­dent of the Don Miguel Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School, was lucky to be alive, as the bul­let on­ly pierced his left cheek and ex­it­ed through the oth­er side. Af­ter the re­port was made in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­turned to the area but were un­able to find the gun­man. Po­lice said they were puz­zled over the ran­dom at­tack and are yet to es­tab­lish a mo­tive. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.