Shot taxi driver leaves hospital as police name suspect
Police are looking for 26-year-old Dylan Nuku in connection with the shooting of a taxi driver in Wellington.
The taxi driver, Alem Tessema, was shot on the job in the suburb of Miramar on Saturday. He was yesterday discharged from Wellington Hospital but may never return to work, his boss says.
Nuku is 158cm tall. Police say he is armed and dangerous, and should not be approached. Anyone who sees him is asked to call 111 immediately.
Last night, Tessema told 1 News that out of the thousands of people he could have picked up on Courtenay Place that night, he did not expect any of them to have a gun.
‘‘The lady [passenger], she jumped out fast, and then [the shooter] he jumped out fast, and then he came [up] next to me, then [said] ‘get out the car’.’’
Tessema said he thought the gunman was joking, then he heard a ‘‘boom’’.
Police said he was shot in the shoulder with a small-calibre weapon before driving away.
Tessema managed to reach a nearby service station, where he got help before being taken to Wellington Hospital.
Police are actively searching for Nuku and search warrants were carried out yesterday.
Detective Senior Sergeant Warwick McKee yesterday appealed for Nuku to hand himself in: ‘‘Come forward to speak to police.’’
Tessema’s boss, Capital Taxis director Tim Lauagiagi, said he had not spoken to the driver since Saturday night.
Tessema may not even want to return to the job, Lauagiagi said yesterday.
‘‘This has never, never happened before in this city,’’ he said. ‘‘And in my company, it’s just incredible.’’
The incident was particularly shocking for the Ethiopian community, as many taxi drivers were from Ethiopia. Several of the company’s drivers had gone to the hospital to visit Tessema, he said.
McKee said the shooting could have been a lot worse. ‘‘We are fortunate that this is not a homicide investigation. This shooting is a nasty unwarranted attack ... this attack was totally unprovoked and excessive.’’