A Hammond man was injured Monday in a shooting in rural Valparaiso and a Union Township man was in custody, the Porter County Sheriff’s Police said.

According to police, at 1 a.m. officers were dispatched to the 400 block of Forestwood Drive in Union Township in response to a report of shots fired.

An initial investigation determined that a group of four teenagers had been walking through a wooded area behind the residence of Gregory D. Huls, 46, of 448 Forestwood Drive, police said, and Huls, hearing noises from the woods, randomly fired numerous times with a handgun into the wooded area.

Andrew J. Milam, 18, of Hammond, was struck once in the ankle by a bullet, police said. He was transported to Porter Valparaiso Hospital Campus for treatment of the gunshot wound.

Huls was taken into custody, police said, and is being held on a preliminary charge of criminal recklessness with a firearm, a Class C felony punishable by a term of two to eight years.

Posted 6/16/2009