A man mounted a bicycle shortly before 5:30 p.m. yesterday and pulled out a gun. He pedaled down Norris Street in Camden and opened fire, peppering the neighborhood with bullets, police sources said.

Brandon Thompson, 4, was playing on the street in front of his house. The child was struck in the head. He died instantly.

Just before dawn this morning, U.S. Marshals captured a suspect in South Philadelphia.

Donald Benjamin Lindsey, 20, has been charged with the boy's murder.

Marshals arrested Lindsey at 5 a.m. on the 2000 block of South Bonsall Street without incident, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. He is being held at Philadelphia Police headquarters where he is awaiting extradition back to Camden.

At a press conference this morning, prosecutor Warren Faulk said the shooting stemmed from "a beef" Lindsey had with someone in the neighborhood and was not drug or gang-related.

Police recovered two guns from a house on Norris Street, but neither was deemed the murder weapon.

Authorities cast some doubt on whether the gunman on the bicycle was armed with a machine gun and suggested the bullets were fired from a smaller semiautomatic.

Investigators recovered two dozen 9mm casings at the scene, Faulk said.

It is unclear how the shooting started, Faulk said, but Lindsey appeared to have exchanged gunfire with at least one other person on the street.

At the site of the shooting this morning, family and friends gathered at a makeshift memorial for the child.

Stephanie Thompson, 21, Brandon's mother, emerged from the house, crying and screaming as friends hugged and tried to comfort her.

On the sidewalk, seven teddy bears in various colors had been placed on and near two white T-shirts where messages had been scrawled in crayon and felt-tipped pen:

"RIP Lil Brandon"

"Gone but never forgotten"

"In Loving Memory, Lil Brandon"

Police last night said the boy had been caught in the crossfire of a gun battle that erupted at 5:20 p.m. on the 1600 block of Norris Street in the city's Whitman Park section.

Brandon Thompson was playing in front of his house when Lindsey, armed with a gun, allegedly rode down the street on a bicycle spraying bullets as at least one other man returned fire, police said.

One of the bullets struck the boy in his head.

Dozens of shell casings littered the street following the shooting.

Last night, Ramon Thomas, said he was walking out of a convenience store when he heard rapid gunshots. When he got to the end of the block, he saw a woman clutching a small child to her chest.

"She was just screaming," Thomas, 21, said. "I could just see that the figure of child, it was lifeless."

The boy was rushed to Cooper University Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The killing is the 36th homicide of the year in the city.