Three Arrested in Slaying on Dead-End Street : Violence: In an unrelated attack, a boy is in critical condition after being shot while riding in a car on the Harbor Freeway.

Los Angeles police Saturday announced the arrests of three suspects in the shooting death of a 3-year-old girl whose killing as she rode in a car escalated into a national symbol of senseless urban violence.

The suspects, whom police refused to identify, were arrested late Friday and booked on suspicion of murder in connection with the ambush-style shooting last Sunday in Cypress Park that resulted in the death of Stephanie Kuhen, 3, and minor gunshot wounds to her 2-year-old brother and the family friend who was driving the vehicle.

Meanwhile, police said a 12-year-old Whittier boy became another victim of an unprovoked attack on a motorist when he was shot in the head late Friday while riding home along the Harbor Freeway after seeing a Dodger game with a cousin and a friend.

Richard Andrew Bautista was listed in critical but stable condition Saturday at Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center, where he underwent a four-hour surgery, a hospital spokeswoman said.

An uncle, John Ruiz, said the bullet pierced the sixth-grader’s brain.

Bautista, described as a model student and Roman Catholic altar boy dedicated to soccer, was in the front passenger seat of a car being driven by his 18-year-old cousin. A man in a yellow van opened fire for no apparent reason as the van approached Bautista’s car from behind with its high beams on, police said.

The shooting occurred on the southbound Harbor Freeway between Manchester Avenue and Imperial Highway, police said.

The gunman’s first shot shattered the rear window of the car carrying Bautista, police said. The assailant fired two additional shots before the van got off the freeway at Century Boulevard and headed east, authorities said.

The injured youth collapsed and slumped against his cousin, Cynthia Ibarra, who turned the car onto the Century Freeway before flagging down a Highway Patrol car. Ibarra was unhurt but Jesus Magdaleno, an 18-year-old friend of the cousin who was in the back seat, suffered a bullet graze wound to his back, police said. The three people were going for a hamburger before returning home to Whittier.

Bautista, the youngest of three children of a post office worker and a bank teller, dreamed of playing soccer for the U.S. team in the Olympics and the World Cup, his uncle said.

A moment before the shots were fired, police said, the boy was discussing his soccer ambitions when his cousin advised him: “You can do anything you set your heart on.”

Ruiz, who is also the boy’s godfather, said: “It’s very ironic that innocent people are the ones who get it all the time.”

The boy was nearly a straight-A student at St. Gregory the Great Elementary School and devoted his time to his studies, church and soccer, Ruiz said.

Police are asking witnesses to call (213) 485-2504.

In the Cypress Park murder case--which has drawn condemnation from President Clinton--the filing of formal murder charges against the three suspects awaits consultations with the district attorney’s office Monday, said Lt. John Dunkin, an LAPD spokesman.

According to police, the car carrying the 3-year-old mistakenly strayed into the Cypress Park area after midnight last Sunday and took a wrong turn onto a graffiti-glazed, dead-end street that turned out to be gang turf. Witness statements indicate that more than a dozen assailants participated in the attack, though it is unclear how many opened fire, said Don Cox, an LAPD spokesman.

The child’s mother and an uncle escaped unhurt.

Details about the suspects arrested in the Cypress Park shooting were thin Saturday, as police were tight-lipped about the matter. Although police routinely release the names of arrestees before they are formally charged, Dunkin did not explain why identities were being withheld on this occasion.

The arrests came hours after the LAPD, in a somewhat embarrassing retreat from earlier statements, revealed that authorities would not seek charges against a previously named suspect--Vincent Caldera, a 23-year-old gang member, who, according to relatives and acquaintances, was being set up in a police rush to judgment even though he was out of town at the time of the shooting.