A 2-year-old Bronx boy was shot dead yesterday when his mother’s car was accidentally hit by gunfire during a street fight. Police were searching for the gunman last night.

The boy, identified by police last night as David Pacheco, was riding with his mother in a gray minivan traveling east along West Tremont Avenue in the University Heights section of the Bronx about 2 p.m. when the shots were fired. A single bullet entered the passenger side of the van and hit Pacheco in the chest, police said.

His mother drove another block before realizing her son had been shot. She stopped the car and frantically hailed a gypsy cab driver, who took them both to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead about 45 minutes later, police said. The mother’s name was not released. The manager of Villa Deli Grocery on Harrison Avenue, Miguel Payano, said he ran outside after he heard the gunshots. He saw the mother pulling Pacheco out of his child safety seat and laying him on the sidewalk, he said.

“He looked like he was not alive,” Mr. Payano said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. There was no blood. He was just a little kid.”

Police said two groups of young men, one made up of Hispanic and the other of black youths, were having a dispute across the intersection at West Tremont and Harrison avenues. One man, identified as a black male in his 20s, pulled out a .38 caliber handgun and began firing through traffic at the Hispanic men.

By the time Mr. Payano was outside his deli, the young men had disappeared.

“On a Sunday, on Easter, you aren’t expecting things like that to happen,” he said.

No one was in custody last night. Police were questioning witnesses at the 46th Precinct station.