A 6-year-old black boy was shot in the head Tuesday as his family drove through the Harbor Gateway neighborhood, according to authorities.

Officer Ana Aguirre, a police spokeswoman, said that boy was hospitalized in a critical condition.

According to Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, around 12:30 p.m. two Latino men flashed gang signs before opening fire on the red GMC Yukon as it was moving on 227th Street between Halldale and Denker avenues.

In the car there were six people, including a woman pregnant in eight months.

The boy was taken in critical condition to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center after the shooting.

The accident occurred in Harbor Gateway, an area which is known for the attacks of Latino gangs against black people.

The attack comes after weeks of violence involving gangs in Los Angles County. This week a Los Angeles High School football player was shot by gang members as he walked home, according to police.

Another attack occurred last week when a gang member opened fire at a bus stop injuring eight people including five children, in South Los Angeles.

According to police, the family of the victim from Tuesday was not living in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood. The other passengers in the car were a man and a woman and two other children of 3 and 1 ½ years old.

Police is searching for two suspects, one between the ages of 28 and 30, with a white T-shirt and black pants, and the other between ages 16 and 20, shaved head and a mustache on a bicycle.

Investigators believe that the attack is related to gang, but so far there is no evidence that was racial motivated.

From Saturday night there had been 67 homicides in the city since the beginning of the year, compared with the 54 from last year, a 24% increase.

Still, crimes in Los Angeles related to gangs, has decreased form 294 to 216 in 2006.