Boy, 2, Shot, Apparently Intentional Target of Gang : Violence: Child is in critical but stable condition. Three other youngsters are also victims of bullets.

A 2-year-old Lynwood boy was shot and critically wounded--apparently on purpose--as he played with a push toy in front of his home, authorities said Wednesday. He was one of four children shot in Los Angeles within the span of a few hours.

Jonathon Fabian was in critical but stable condition Wednesday at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. The toddler was struck in the stomach by a small-caliber bullet in the 4000 block of Platt Avenue Tuesday evening, said Sheriff’s Deputy Kathleen Wade.

Police suspected gang members, but the precise motivation for the shooting was unclear.

While increasing numbers of children are falling victim to random gang gunfire, Jonathon’s shooting appeared to be one of the first incidents in which a child was the intended target, law enforcement authorities said.

“Just when you think you know the limits of the insanity, something like this happens,” said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Fred Nixon. “I have never heard of a deliberate gang shooting where the victim was of such a young age.”

“I’ve never seen a 2-year-old considered a threat to anyone,” added Sheriff’s Detective Craig Ditsch, who is in charge of the investigation. “For the most part, gang members shoot other gang members and kids are sometimes shot accidentally.”

In other shootings of children, a 13-year-old was shot and killed and a 16-year-old companion was wounded as they sat in a car in South Los Angeles waiting for a traffic light to change. A 7-year-old boy, caught in a gang cross-fire in South Los Angeles, was struck in the leg by a bullet. The incidents were believed to be unrelated.

Few law enforcement agencies keep track of the ages of crime victims. However, gang-related homicides are rapidly increasing, gang experts say. As of Wednesday morning, for instance, there had been 116 gang-related murders reported in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County this year, compared to 112 in all of 1989. At this rate, officials believe, the number could reach 160 or more by the end of the year.

“The boldness of gangs continues to escalate,” said Steve Valdivia, executive director of Community Youth Gang Services. “They are shooting into homes, churches, at cops. It’s getting to the point where the intended victims can be virtually anybody.”

Jonathon Fabian was playing in a push-car about 6:50 p.m. Tuesday, his father standing a few yards away, when two shots rang out, according to authorities. Witnesses told sheriff’s investigators that they saw three teen-age boys running away from the wounded child, one of them carrying a gun.

Police were puzzled by the attack. They took special notice of witnesses’ reports that two shots had been fired at close range and that no other possible gang targets were standing nearby--leading them to believe the 2-year-old was the target.

“I don’t understand it myself,” said Sheriff’s Detective Craig Ditsch. “I don’t know if it was fun target practice or what.”

Neighbors recalled how they had been out watering their lawns at the time and, turning toward the gunfire, saw Luis Fabian, 27, holding his son in his arms, a helpless expression on his face.

“I went down there and found the father on the telephone, panicking, trying to communicate in Spanish with 911 operators, the phone in one hand and his bleeding child in the other,” said Percy Ross, a superintendent with Caltrans. “I lifted the little boy’s shirt and saw a bullet wound in his back. I yelled ‘Give me the phone!’ ”

The boy was taken by paramedics to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

Police said the father has no gang affiliations and was not believed to be the intended target.

For residents of this lower-middle-class enclave of ranch style homes, Jonathon’s shooting was a tragic reminder of how much their once-quiet neighborhood has changed. Only last weekend, less than a block from the Fabians’ home, neighbors said a group of young men stood on a corner, yelled out a gang slogan and opened fire on a passing car, critically wounding its driver.

The toddler’s 26-year-old mother, Yvonne Fabian, remembered. “A week ago we heard five shots in the same area my son was shot.”

Fabian, whose family moved into their small, yellow home only three weeks ago, said she only recently started allowing Jonathon and his baby sister to play in the front yard.

“I used to keep my children in the back yard but that was like keeping them in jail,” she said, standing at her front door, her eyes brimming with tears. “All I care about now is that my son gets well.’

Another mother, whose four children are grown but who now cares for four grandchildren, stood in her doorway Wednesday and looked out warily at the street.

“I don’t know what to do except pray for all the children, “ she said, refusing to give her name out of fear the gang members might return. “ . . . Once they lose their life, they can’t reach back and get another one. And what are they losing it for? Silliness.”

While police believe the shooting was intentional, teen-agers on the street said that the boy might have been the accidental victim of an escalating war between rival gangs, one black and one Latino, for whom Platt Avenue is becoming the main battleground.

“After school last night, the blacks and the Mexicans were after each other,” said a 17-year-old Lynwood high school student, who asked not to be identified. “The blacks and the Latinos used to be together. But something happened.”

Jonathon lay crying in King/Drew Medical Center’s pediatric unit Wednesday, his father trying to comfort him with a white teddy bear. “He’s going to pull out of it,” Luis Fabian said.

A few hours after Jonathon was brought to the hospital, 13-year-old Claudette Ku, 13 arrived by ambulance with a mortal gunshot wound to the head.

Claudette had been shot about midnight Tuesday as she rode down 82nd Street, sitting between her 16-year-old boyfriend, Carlos Perez, and an unidentified driver, both of whom are gang members, said Los Angeles police officials.

The car stopped at a light and was about to make a right turn onto Hoover when a white Buick Regal pulled up beside it with two men inside, police detectives said.

“Where you . . . from?,” one of them asked Claudette and her companions, police said. Before they could answer, one of the men in the Buick raised a sawed-off rifle and fired one round into their car. The bullet missed the driver, but hit Claudette, passing through her head and striking her boyfriend in the face, police said. The girl died Wednesday morning. Carlos Perez was in stable but serious condition at an undisclosed hospital.

Finally, a 7-year-old boy was in good condition Wednesday at Kaiser Sunset Medical Center in Los Angeles after being shot in the leg Tuesday night. Police said a neighbor, who is a suspected gang member, fired several shots at a passing car, missed, and hit the youngster, who was riding his bicycle.