When Vincent Terry was shot and killed Tuesday in a parking lot in East Liberty, he joined a list of people who were more than just victims of violence.

Mr. Terry was at least the fourth person to be shot and killed in the city this year simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"People have been numbed to so many of these things that have happened in the surrounding communities that they say I hope it doesn't happen here, and then it does," said Wanda Beasley, a friend of Mr. Terry's who attended a vigil last night that was held in the apartment parking lot where he was slain.

Like those innocent bystanders who died previously, Mr. Terry's death provoked cries of outrage, anger and fear. Experts say those feelings are common among communities where seemingly innocent people, uninvolved in the gang or drug feuds that often end in death, become unintended targets.

"If there are two members of warring gangs shooting at each other, the public generally responds by saying, a plague on both of them," said Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University. "But if it is somebody killed at random, they can more directly identify with them."

Mr. Terry was shot Tuesday night by a man who police say was returning fire toward two other men who, moments earlier, had fired at least five bullets into the front door of a nearby townhouse. Mr. Terry, a maintenance man at the East Liberty Gardens apartment complex wasn't the target, police said. He just happened to be in the area doing his job.

"We didn't just lose an employee, we lost someone we cared for and loved and saw every day," Ms. Beasley said.

She was among about 100 people at the candlelight vigil, many of whom wore T-shirts bearing Mr. Terry's photograph. Holding candles, many of the mourners wrote messages of peace on pavement and prayed for an end to the violence.

The somber gathering was remindful of others that were held earlier this year for other victims.

• On Jan. 28, 12-year-old Jolesa Barber was killed while visiting her sister's rowhouse on the North Side. Gunmen fired 40 rounds into the house. Authorities later said they believed the gunmen were targeting the slain girl's sister, who had been associating with gang members.

• Community members were outraged April 18, when 12-year-old Kholen Germany was shot and killed by a man who opened fire in front of a Wilkinsburg clothing store. He was fatally wounded as he ran inside the stores after he and others heard gunfire and tried to take cover.

• On June 15, a 15-year-old girl named Raymond Reese was killed and two other teens were wounded in what police said was a drive-by shooting on Pasadena Street in Mount Washington. Miss Reese was standing with friends on a front porch when 10 to 15 shots were fired from a passing car.

Yesterday, it was Mr. Terry who was in the thoughts and prayers of those who knew him. He was a hard-working maintenance man, happy with his new job tending to the sprawling apartment complex. He liked to barbecue ribs, tend to his plants and look after the neighborhood's young children.

He'd opted to postpone dinner with his girlfriend to work 30 minutes of overtime Tuesday night, when he was shot in the back alongside another worker.

Two men were running toward a getaway car parked near Mr. Terry when someone fired toward them but struck him instead. He fell behind the vehicle, which backed over him and dragged him 60 feet as it sped off. The Allegheny County medical examiner's office said Mr. Terry died of a gunshot wound to the torso.

Police were still searching for the getaway car and at least four people involved in the gun battle, which might have erupted over drugs, police Lt. Dan Herrmann said yesterday.

That Mr. Terry was an innocent man caught in the crossfire doesn't change detectives' approach to solving his murder, he said, but the emotion the case stirred could prompt more witnesses to speak out to police.

"When they see this person who has nothing to do with anything, who is making a living, and working hard, they're going to feel the same way the detectives do, that this poor man shouldn't have to die based on someone else's problems," Lt. Herrmann said.

When a child is the unintended casualty of gunfire, feelings of anger and injustice in a community are only intensified, Dr. Blumstein said.

Religious leaders at Jolesa Barber's funeral said her killing was the work of the devil in the hearts of the gunmen. She was an honor student at A.J. Rooney Middle School who loved basketball and participated in the Pittsburgh Project, which had begun to expose its classes to urban farming ideas.

Michael Gist, 15, and Anthony Wilson, 30, were later charged with homicide in Jolesa's death.

Though several men have been charged in the death of Kholen Germany, police continue to search for the man who fired the fatal shot. Relatives at his funeral called him an innocent boy with a bright future, cut short by gun violence.

Attendees of Raymond Reese's funeral lamented senseless violence and its lingering effects on their neighborhood. They said they wished they could live in a place where they could step onto their porches without fear of being shot. Raymond, a ninth-grader at the city's Student Achievement Center in Homewood, was an aspiring pediatrician who liked SpongeBob SquarePants, cheerleading, writing and making her friends laugh.

No one has been arrested in her death.

Mr. Terry's relatives hope for swift justice in his case and that people will come forward with information.

"People need to step up and take a stand and say, 'I know what happened,' " said Tee Alexander, who described herself as a close friend of Mr. Terry's.

"They need to step up and tell the truth."