Cops: Suspect arrested minutes after homicide in North Philadelphia

Cops chased and arrested a man who they saw ditch a gun minutes after a man was fatally shot on a North Philadelphia street Thursday night, police said.

Police found the victim, a 26-year-old man, with gunshot wounds to his neck, chest, stomach, arm, both legs and buttocks lying in a vacant lot on 24th Street near Ridge Avenue shortly before midnight, Chief Inspector Scott Small said. He was rushed to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:59 p.m.

Small said 22nd District officers were in the immediate area when they received the call for the shooting and saw a man jump out of a vehicle at 24th and Montgomery streets, less than a block from where the man was shot. The officers chased the man and saw him toss a handgun as he was running, Small said. They eventually caught up with him, placed him under arrest and recovered the gun.

It was the second arrest in connection with a shooting made by Philadelphia police within minutes of the shooting itself on Thursday, after cops saw a man with a gun chasing another man he'd allegedly just shot in the city's Germantown section earlier in the evening and arrested him.

The 9mm semiautomatic handgun recovered near the 24th and Ridge homicide scene appeared to match the shell casings found scattered in the vacant lot where the victim was found, investigators said. The suspect remained in custody early Friday morning but was not yet charged as of 1:30 a.m.

The 26-year-old man was the second man shot to death on Thursday in Philadelphia and the seventh shooting victim in the city since 5 p.m.