Off-duty correction officer shot in Queens

Female correction officer was shot by her boyfriend afgter having a meal in the USA diner on Merrick blvd and 243 St in her car as they lefted the diner

A text message received as a couple sat at a Queens diner Monday night sparked an argument that ended with an off-duty city Correction officer getting shot in the gut — and cops looking for her boyfriend.

The Correction officer, who was in surgery early Tuesday morning at a Queens hospital, had shown up with her boyfriend at the USA diner on Merrick Blvd. in Rosedale shortly after 10:30 p.m. The 28-year-old wore a black dress.

They were seated at a booth and ordered tea.

She got a text on her phone,” the diner’s manager, Tony Smalls, who viewed security camera footage afterward, told the Daily News.

She checks it, then she starts rubbing her hands together — she’s very nervous.”

The couple then asked for a check.

We are not staying anymore. Thank you,” a waitress recalled the Rikers Island guard as saying.

Once in the parking lot, the pair got into a tense argument. Witnesses then heard a few shots.

More than one round tore into the Correction officer’s stomach, police said. Her name was not immediately released.

When she got shot she called for help and she drove herself to the middle of the street in front of the diner, so they could see her,” Smalls said.

By that point, witnesses said, her companion had fled in a 2001 white BMW.

Emergency crews found the Correction officer in the driver’s seat of a red Ford Explorer.

Mike Rudy, 34, said the officer remained conscious while paramedics tended to her.

“Tons of cops showed up right away,” he said. “Her hands were moving the whole time. They took her out in a stretcher.”

Before she was taken by ambulance to Jamaica Medical Center, she told cops her boyfriend’s name and address, leading investigators to search for him in East New York, a police source said.

Surgeons were attempting to remove the bullets from her stomach, a police source said. One slug may have burrowed closer to her chest, complicating the surgery, a police source added. She was in stable condition.

The officer is assigned to the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island and has been with the Department of Correction since August 2011, according to agency spokeswoman Sharman Stein.

Smalls said the gun violence in the parking lot interrupted a busy night, but was not a complete shock to him.

This is nothing new,” he said, seemingly unfazed by the incident.

We're open 24 hours, so you know we catch hell over here.