HAMMOND | Two men were shot outside a city vocational school that was in session Thursday afternoon, putting on lockdown dozens of dignitaries and their kids who were inside for a Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Take Your Child to Work Day.
Hammond police arrested two suspects within minutes of the noon-hour shooting that left one man seriously injured with a gunshot to the back and another with a grazing bullet wound, authorities and witnesses said.
Several of those attending Thursday's chamber of commerce event at the Hammond Area Career Center said they were not upset by the event, which put the school on lockdown for about half an hour.
"It was phenomenal the way (security officials) handled it," luncheon attendee Greg Mason told a reporter outside the center.
Two blocks away, in the 5500 block of Claude Avenue, neighborhood resident and minister Antonio Armstrong was visibly upset about the shooting and the subsequent foot pursuit in which one of the suspects ran through his neighbor's yard.
"There was just an incident yesterday. It's ridiculous, gangbangers selling drugs," Armstrong said Thursday afternoon. "We want the violence to stop. It's useless. It's senseless."
Police Chief Brian Miller said the shooting was believed to be gang-related.
Shortly after noon Thursday, two men driving a Chevrolet Tahoe pulled up alongside two men who were walking at the intersection of Sohl Avenue and Carroll Street, and the passenger in the SUV opened fire, Miller said.
Both pedestrians were hit and ran into the First Assembly of God Hammond, at 5670 Sohl Ave.
"They were pretty messed up. They were shaken up," said Pastor J. Calaway, who received the wounded men into his church. "We prayed for them, and then the ambulance came."
The shooting was on the street corner several hundred feet from the front door of the school, which was in session at the time. The chamber of commerce event participants and their young children were advised to stay away from the windows after the lockdown was lifted.
Miller said a police chase began almost immediately. Authorities captured one suspect while he was still in the Tahoe and ran down the other suspect after he tried to flee on foot through alleys behind nearby homes.
During a search for the weapon, Hammond police Lt. Michael Tumidalsky recovered a six-shot .38-caliber revolver from a watering can in the backyard of a home on Claude Avenue. All six rounds were spent, Miller said.
Miller said the suspect apparently was trying to ditch the weapon.
