Police are testing a metal ball pl...

Police are testing a metal ball plant in the cab of a barter that might be the latest vehicle targeted along Cline Avenue in northwest Indiana in a series of apparent shootings through the last month.

"The crime lab is testing the ball, still they're not conducting ballistics tests" said Mike Higgins, a spokesman for the Lake shire Ind., sheriff's office. "The and nothing else kind of gun that could fire that thing is a colonial war flintlock or a BB gun"

FIRST PHYSICAL EVIDENCE fix

sum of two units Chicago area motorists told police their windows broke Monday as they flock on Cline, bringing to 15 the number of suspected victims of the shooter or shooter since July 25

Local police and federal agents had been frustrated according to the lack of physical evidence. No bullet pellet refuges or other objects were place after the shootings.

Alfredo Hernandez, a driver for L&L Cartage in Gary, Ind., told police he set up the metal ball while cleaning shattered glass from the cab of his barter Monday afternoon after the rear window shattered as he crowd on Cline.

Lake shire Detective Pat Tracy interviewed Hernandez and took the ball as evidence Tuesday, delivering it to the shire crime lab for tests.

Higgins said police might not at any time know whether the object was fired at Hernandez's window.

"All we know now is that they erect this metal ball inside the cab," he said.

Hernandez, of Chicago, was the secondary truck driver Monday to report a shattered window. Joliet resident William Autman said the back window of the cab of his semi-tractor trailer shattered as he collection on Cline about noon. Monday's incidents were the first reported since Aug. 18

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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