A terrified employee of De Monsta Grill & Bar at Rendezvous, Christ Church is now looking over his shoulders following a daring robbery which has left his employer Elvis Graham hospitalized with six gunshot wounds.
Elvis Graham, owner of De Monsta Grill & Bar, was shot six times by robbers and remains hospitalized.
At the same time, however, the employee is looking to the skies and thanking God that no lives were lost during the incident, which occurred around 1 a.m. on Thursday when four masked robbers invaded the popular food establishment.
Still visibly shaken, the employee recounted the ordeal in an interview with Barbados TODAY.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said if he had the power to stop that night from happening, he would have. It was closing time, he recalled, and he was about to get on his bicycle to head home.
That was when the incident, which he described as a scene out of a movie, took place.
He said Graham, who is currently in stable condition after undergoing surgery, was also preparing to get into his vehicle to leave the location when four men moved in and started beating him.
This victim asked that his photograph be blurred.
“I ask them what them doing to he and to try and let he go. Then one run to me and come and grabbed me by my shirt and put the gun by my face and tell me to come and carry me down in a corner.”
He said on their way to the out-of-sight location, his attacker spotted two female employees hiding in the gallery and demanded that they too follow him.
“He carry the three of we and tell me to lay down on the ground flat. He say, ‘this is what going on, I want cellular phones and money’. “I say, ‘well, the truth is, big man, I got a cellular phone but I ain’t got no money’. He take away the girls’ cellular phones and pop off one gold chain,” he recalled.
As this was happening, he said he could hear his boss telling the three bandits, who were still beating him, he had no more money and urging them to carry out a search if they were in doubt.
He said he then started hearing shots ringing off, and was hoping that the bullets were going into the air, or, possibly hitting the sidewalks.
“He (Graham) was hollering for ‘aye’ and I was telling myself I hope them ain’t hitting he.”
By this time, the two females were both crying uncontrollably. One in her 30’s pleaded with the man pointing the gun at her not to pull the trigger, telling him she has three children to live for.
“I was real frightened too, but I couldn’t show it because I was the man there. I was telling myself, ‘it is me and two girls. If anything, he would shoot me first to get the two girls scared. I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say.
“But the one that was with the three of we didn’t look so aggressive to me. You could see that he was young. The girl was telling him that she has some important things on her sim card and if she could get it back, he could keep the phone. He [bandit] give her it.”
Investigations later revealed that Graham, who was shot three times in his legs, and also on chest, elbow and face, was the one receiving the hits.
“After that, the [bandit] that had we, run and I tell the girls, ‘let we left from bout here’. When we go to see Elvis, they [female employees] tell me to let we try and carry he to the hospital.
“But I tell them, ‘I can’t drive to the hospital and we shouldn’t move him. Let me try and get to his brother [Ronald Graham]’.”
He noted that he then went to the brother’s home, located not too far from the bar, in Sargeants Village, Christ Church where Graham also resides and they both returned to the scene.
An ambulance was called and the injured man was rushed for medical attention.
The devastating nightmare is over and the employee, who has no children but is in a longstanding relationship, said he knows life must go on.
Nevertheless, in a serious tone and with a mark of fright on his face, he said he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. The thought that he, Graham and the female workers may still be in danger keeps running through his mind.
“I just frightened,” he told Barbados TODAY.
“If I see anybody strange, I ain’t taking no chances or nothing. At one point, I was saying, ‘I gine dead tonight’. But Elvis is a man who didn’t deserve this,” he added.
The employee, also a part time gardener, described the man he has been working with for some time now as a cool individual who stayed away from trouble and did not drink alcohol.
He indicated that Graham, who resided overseas for 30 years, was selective with customers and tried to keep troublesome individuals away from the establishment.
“If they get the money, what they shoot him for? I am sticking [to my view] that Elvis did not deserve this.”
Meanwhile, one of the businessman’s family members who also requested anonymity, said her helpful and loving cousin was in a lot of pain and kept asking why such an ordeal had to happen to him.
“I remember me and my boyfriend looking outside and seeing someone on the ground and people scrambling.
“Then I saw my other cousin’s vehicle and told myself something had to happen to either one of them. Then I saw him [Graham] on the ground and I thought he was stabbed. But Elvis did not deserve this, not my cousin,” she said.
Police are currently on the hunt for the four robbers.