Another child got hit by a stray bullet in an Over-the-Rhine shootout Sunday evening. No one rioted; church leaders didn't march; neighborhood activists didn't organize protest campaigns to put gunmen out of business. Parents pulled their kids off the streets, and nobody could name the shooter.

Even the intended victim, who argued with the man near a bar on McMicken Avenue, couldn't name the shooter or say where he lived.

Over-the-Rhine parents shouldn't have to live in fear of letting their youngsters play outdoors or suffering retaliation if they inform on trigger-happy criminals. Far more neighborhood residents need to start making good-faith efforts to partner with police in fighting the criminals. But more than just the shrunken, shell-shocked population is needed to clean up Over-the-Rhine crime. Police need to hunt down OTR's "worst of the worst" with unflagging, single-minded purpose, and city leaders need to recognize once and for all that "anti-gentrification" activists are no friends to Over-the-Rhine families still hanging on there. Residents understand day-to-day there is safety in numbers, and lethal danger in the wholesale flight of stable, law-abiding families.

Also, all those promising new condos planned for Over-the-Rhine will be a tougher sell unless Cincinnati puts the gunmen out of business. It's not yet clear if drugs were involved in Sunday's shootout, but Police Chief Tom Streicher says at least 90 percent of the city's killings are drug-related. Police are looking for a thin, 5-foot-10 black man in his early 20s. After the argument, he fetched a handgun and began blasting away at another man. One of about five shots fired hit 7-year-old E'nijah "Bootie" Mincy in the hand and chest as she was riding bikes with her cousins and friends. Moments before, her 10-year-old cousin, T'shawn Alexander, yelled at her: "Bootie, come over here 'cause they're going to start shooting."

It's a sad day when 10-year-olds have to serve as a neighborhood's early warning system. Children's Hospital listed the wounded girl in stable condition. Cincinnati's homicide rate last year hit a 26-year-high of 75, while similar-sized St. Louis cut its rate to 69. Ten years ago, in 1993, St. Louis' killing rate topped out at 267. St. Louis added cops, pushed Community Problem Oriented Policing, cracked down on the "worst of the worst" and had the backing of black ministers. Even though mostly black neighborhoods were targeted, black clergy rejected the idea it was racial profiling. "If you talk to people in the neighborhoods who deal with this all the time," said the Rev. Earl Nance Jr., "they want violent offenders out."

Past Cincinnati councils overloaded Over-the-Rhine with the city's problem cases - the poor, the homeless, the troubled and violent. Shootings there aren't just a neighborhood problem. Redevelopment is occurring, and spreading, but during the transition, more partners are needed to keep innocent youngsters in the streets from ending up as "collateral damage."