HAMMOND - Downtown Hammond is an area of town most popular for college nightlife and restaurants, but this past Saturday, during the early morning hours, shots were fired downtown, leaving one person injured."It's supposed to be a place where you can have fun, get drunk, and have a good time with y our friends on a Thursday night and not have to worry about an accidental shot getting you," college student Cadyn Day said.Surveillance video from Slices Pizza shows the moment people took off running."Waiting to get my pizza, finally got it, coming out and then I hear a bunch of shots, and then it's just all these people, just a whole bunch of nonsense running my way, so I just backed up to get out of the way," Hammond resident William Baughman II said.Owner of Slices Pizza and downtown bar Cate Street Pub, Dan Lambert, says it's something he has not seen in his 30 years of business."These outside young gang members are coming and fighting each other in the parking lot, and that's what's deterring our business," Lambert said.The same day of the shooting, Hammond police say they arrested 16 people and recovered 10 guns during a sweep of downtown."Well, it's not safe if you've got those kinds of weapons floating around," resident Anthony Kelly said.During Tuesday night's Hammond City Council meeting, Mayor Pete Panepinto addressed the crime, saying they will be implementing some new changes."In order to try to address this, over the last few weeks, we've added additional police officers to downtown to help out with this," Panepinto said.Panepinto says the city will also install additional lighting and begin enforcing the open container law more strictly."We seem to be having a lot of problems in the parking areas and people drinking outside of the establishments, and we just have to tighten down and try to make sure that it's a safer environment for everyone," Panepinto said.Lambert says he is glad to see the city is addressing the crime."We have a problem, and I see them being proactive now and going after them, and hopefully that will do it, the word will get out that downtown Hammond is hot with cops," Lambert said.Permalink| Comments ...read more read less