POSTED AT 12:00 AM ON Jul. 31, 2006 | PRINT | Email | SHARE | COMMENTS (0)

HAMMOND -- Another motorist reported a shattered window Friday a short distance from where a truck driver said the day before that he believed his window had been shot out.

The Friday afternoon report was the fourth one from a driver in Lake County of possible shootings at vehicles since Tuesday. No injuries have been reported.

While investigators did not immediately find evidence of gunfire Friday and did not find any bullets from the previous incidents, Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez said all the reports were being taken seriously.

"We would rather err on the side of caution than sit back and see someone injured," Dominguez said.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said Thursday that the damage reports appeared to be false alarms. But on Friday he said a small-caliber gun or a BB or pellet gun could have been used to break the vehicle windows.

The driver in Friday afternoon's report told police that as he drove around a curve on a busy street near the Indiana Toll Road he heard a loud boom and his driver's-side window shattered.

Another driver reported Thursday afternoon also hearing a loud sound just before his truck's passenger window blew out as he drove on the Indiana 912 expressway in northern Hammond near the BP oil refinery.

The previous reports came from a driver whose car windshield was damaged Thursday morning on Interstate 80/94 and a motorist on Tuesday who said he saw a man wearing a long trench coat shoot at his vehicle on a busy street about a mile from I-94.

"We're treating them all as shootings until we can prove otherwise," Lake County sheriff's Detective Pat Tracy said Friday. "The last two are more indicative of shootings."

The sheriff's department said it was reassigning a dozen officers to patrol the area through the weekend and that its helicopter unit would maintain surveillance.

The Lake County reports follow a series of highway sniper-style shootings July 21 on I-65 near Seymour and I-69 near Muncie. Authorities have charged 17-year-old Zachariah Blanton with murder for the death of a passenger in a truck in one of the I-65 shootings.