Six months. Twenty-one shootings in the city. Four dead. Four innocents injured.

Dante Hammond, 21, is the city's latest shooting death. He was shot in the back in the 100 block of Juniata Street just before 2:30 p.m. Monday.

One of the shots fired at him hit a 2-year-old girl in the arm.

That makes her the second child in four months to be hit by a stray bullet.

And Hammond's shooting was the fourth in just two days in Lancaster.

The recent wave of shootings — a mixture of drug disputes, gang disputes and garden-variety disputes — has left an ugly mark on the city: bullet holes in mailboxes and cars, families who keep their doors shut, kids who don't play outside and neighbors who no longer talk to each other.

An 8-year-old girl didn't want to walk by herself to Washington Elementary School today, after her walk home Monday took her past Hammond's body, said the child's mother, Dominga Marquez, 32.

"That's not something they need to see," Marquez said.

Chester Gray, 50, a South Lime Street resident who said he was related to two recent gunshot victims, simply shrugged when asked about the violence.

"You can't stop it," he said.

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray feels a mixture of frustration, rage and depression at the wave of recent shootings.

Police and the city are working hard to keep the streets safe. But there are too many illegal guns in the hands of the wrong people, he said.

"If these people had knives or fought with hands or bats, first of all there wouldn't be the fatalities," he said.

"Second of all, the innocent bystanders wouldn't be involved.

"The people who possess guns illegally are not highly trained marksmen. They're thugs. They're thugs with guns and they're thugs with guns with an attitude. That's an explosive situation."

Police Chief Sam Gatchell was in meetings today and too busy to return calls for comment about the recent wave of shootings.

City police spokesman Sgt. Bill Gleason said police are troubled by the shootings, particularly the steady number that occurred during the cold-weather months when things normally quiet down.

Hammond was shot after a verbal dispute with two young men. One of them shot at Hammond several times before both got in a car and drove away.

When the car was enmeshed in traffic near South Queen and East Strawberry streets, the two got out and fled on foot. Police caught one and were interviewing him today.

The child who was shot was treated at Lancaster General Hospital and released.

People in the neighborhoods of the recent shootings said the violence is bubbling out of control.

Louis Negron's 355 S. Prince St. home was shot at early Sunday morning, after his stepson got into an argument at a nightclub. Someone later shot into the house and wounded another man, who was not involved in the argument, another family member said.

Drugs or gangs weren't behind the shooting, Negron said, just unruly young people.

"Kids can't play stickball in the street like we used to," said the 37-year-old man. "A lot of kids don't go to school and they agitate each other."

While growing up in the South Bronx, he said, a boy could get in fights with other kids and end up being friends.

But now, in Lancaster and seemingly everywhere, young people easily can get a gun to settle their differences, Negron said.

"They'd rather hurt innocent people than swallow their pride," said Negron, whose block also was the scene of a fatal shooting in March.

A 36-year-old man who lives on that block today showed a reporter bullet holes in his mailbox and a nearby car, both results of that incident.

"It's not even summer and people already are getting crazy," he said.

A couple in their 80s sat outside their nearby home. The neighborhood, the man said, used to be nice. Now there are fights all the time.

"I don't bother with neighbors," said the man, who did not give his name. "I mind my own business."

On Juniata Street, where Hammond was killed, Dialix Diaz, 16, said she also stays away from people.

Diaz said she doesn't go outside at night and avoids crowds, adding, "If there is a group of guys, I stay away."

A 39-year-old man who lives in the block where the shooting took place said his two toddlers don't play outdoors.

"It's a tough situation," said the man, who declined to give his name. "This is not a big city for this to be happening this often."

Gray said the state and federal governments need to take some responsibility for what is happening in cities everywhere and pass stricter gun laws. Polls, he said, show people support reasonable gun control.

"People are getting sick and tired of this kind of thing," he said.

"To ask us to control it, how do we control it? You make a gun easily accessible to someone and then tell us to make sure he doesn't use it inappropriately?" he said. "You're asking local government to solve a national problem."

But Gray said the city is doing what it can, readying a proposal that would slap a 90-day sentence on someone for merely firing a gun one time in the city. Gray also supports a reward system for those who report illegal guns, which are then seized.

Gray also personally goes to court to lobby for longer sentences in gun crimes.

"We have to start getting tough on people who possess guns," he said.

CONTACT US: cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024, rrobinson@LNPnews.com or 481-6032