An off-duty Rikers correction officer was shot by her boyfriend last night outside a Queens diner, police sources said.
The woman, 29, was hit once in the stomach in front of the USA Diner on Merrick Boulevard in Laurelton about 10:50 p.m., cops said.
A waitress at the diner said she greeted the couple when the entered the eatery just moments earlier.
“I sat them, they were my table,” said the worker, declined to give her name.
“When I came out of the kitchen, the young woman said, ‘We’re not staying anymore.’ ”
“I said, ‘Ok, no problem honey.’ It seemed just like they changed their minds, not that they were running,” the waitress added.
The victim was shot while sitting in her red Ford Expedition.
The shooter fled and it wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the fight.
A patron at the restaurant said the victim called cops to tell them she’d been shot.
“Cops ran into the diner and yelled at us, ‘Did anyone call the police?’” said Tyrel Wilson, 29.
“We all came out and saw her sitting in her car in the middle of Merrick Boulevard,” he said.
After the woman was shot, she told a responding officer, “It was my ex, he’s in a white BMW,” another witness recalled.
The waitress said the victim “was behind the wheel when they took her out onto the stretcher.”
The victim, whose name was withheld, was rushed to Jamaica Hospital, where she was listed in stable condition and undergoing surgery, authorities said.
The officer has been with the Department of Correction since August 2011, according to a spokeswoman.