2 Arrests Made in Slaying of Girl, 3 : Violence: Police get hundreds of calls from residents enraged over the gang-related death. They say the killing of another child has also contributed to unusual cooperation.

Two gang members were arrested Tuesday morning in the shooting of a 3-year-old girl whose death so outraged the Boyle Heights community that scores of residents called police with information on the crime.

“If this had not been a child, we would not have gotten this kind of response,” said Robert Suter, a veteran Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective. “She was 3 years old. Everyone was outraged. I even had a gang member call with information.”

The arrests of Andres Varela, 22, and a 17-year-old youth on suspicion of murder came a day after tips from South-Central Los Angeles residents led to the quick arrests of two other gang members accused of gunning down another of the city’s youngest homicide victims, an 18-month-old girl.

In both cases, detectives were overwhelmed with information from angry residents, a rarity in gang shooting investigations in which witnesses and informants typically do not speak out for fear of retaliation.

Both girls were shot in the shadow of their fathers, touching a nerve among parents who felt a sense of powerlessness to protect their children against street violence.

“The shooting of babies is the point where people say, ‘This is where it stops,’ ” said Detective Rick Peterson of the Newton Division in South Los Angeles.

News of the arrests in Boyle Heights of Denise Silva’s suspected killers did little to ease her father’s pain.

“I am not happy about this. How can I be happy about arrests?” he said, gently weeping outside the police station. “My little girl is gone. Our lives will never be the same.”

The Newton Division received hundreds of calls from residents about the shooting of Sabrina Haley last Wednesday morning. Authorities said the 18-month-old girl was killed by gunfire apparently meant for her father.

“Without the community help, we could have not made arrests this fast,” Peterson said.

As Sabrina was buried Tuesday at Inglewood Park Cemetery, gang members James Taylor, 22, and Everett Butler, 19, denied in court that they killed her.

In East Los Angeles, Suter and other Hollenbeck Division homicide detectives fielded scores of calls over the weekend as news of the Friday night shooting spread through the barrios.

Denise Silva was walking hand-in-hand with her father to a corner market when two men opened fire from a car. One bullet pierced the youngster’s heart and another wounded a man nearby. An emergency room team at White Memorial Hospital worked for half an hour to save the child, but she died on the operating table as doctors tried to stitch the bullet hole in her heart.

By Monday afternoon, detectives had sifted through phone tips, questioned eager witnesses and identified Varela as a suspect. They notified his mother that they intended to release a picture of him and urged her to persuade him to surrender. Fearing that street vigilantes would harm her son, she took police to him early Tuesday morning, Suter said.

“The community gave us names and locations. They were not afraid to come forth,” said Detective Sal Nares, who noted that he received calls from angry citizens as far away as Boston.

Varela was described as an unemployed high school dropout and gang member. Police declined to identify his gang affiliation but said the intersection of 1st and Savannah streets, where the shooting took place, has been plagued by gang warfare.

The second suspect, whose name was withheld because he is a juvenile, was arrested several hours later at an undisclosed address in Boyle Heights.

Along with the switchboard at the Hollenbeck police station, telephones at nearby Our Lady of Talpa Church were ringing for days after the shooting of the 3-year-old. Parishioners and others offered money to help pay for the girl’s funeral.

“People are asking me, ‘Why should a child be killed? Why, why a child?’ ” said Father Victor Elias, the church’s pastor. “Everyone felt pain and fear over this. That baby was with her father when it happened.”

Inside the family’s modest green stucco house, Silva, 31, and his wife Marisol Vlachos, 21, have been comforted by relatives and neighbors who have kept vigil with them since the slaying. Visitors have brought food and stacks of letters that have poured into the church.

After completing arrangements for a Tuesday night Rosary and funeral Mass this morning for Denise, an exhausted Silva said he is haunted by the dark image of the shooting. He stretched out his arms and clasped his hands together as if pointing a gun.

“I see that black gun. I hear the shot. I hear my baby screaming--every night, every day,” Silva said. “She was in my hands, and there was nothing I could do. It happened so fast.”

He wondered how anyone could kill his daughter.

“He must not have any children. How could he kill if he has a family?” Silva said of the gunman. “I want him to feel the pain I do. Anyone with this pain would not kill.”