Alleged gunman ID’d in latest deadly shooting on South Street

For the second time in three months someone has been fatally shot on Philadelphia’s South Street, gun violence again striking the city’s famed shopping, dining, and entertainment corridor where overall violent crime is relatively rare.

When officers responded at 12:45 a.m. Saturday to a report of a shooting, they found a 35-year-old man lying on South near Fourth Street with gunshot wounds to the head and chest, police said. Officers rushed him to Jefferson University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:58 a.m., police said.

Shortly after the shooting, officers stopped Quadare Lane nearby at Fifth and Lombard Streets, and found him in possession of a .40-caliber pistol loaded with one live round, police said. Lane, 28, of North Philadelphia, was arrested and charged with murder, violation of the Uniform Firearms Act and related offenses.

Police said the motive for the killing was an argument. By Saturday evening, they had not released the identity of the victim pending notification of family.

The shooting occurred near a multiple-block stretch of South Street where, prosecutors have alleged, three teens fired guns into a crowd of people the night of June 4 in a chaotic event that left three dead and 11 others wounded.

Fourth and South is also where Jim’s Steaks remains shuttered from a fire in July believed to have started in the cheesesteak haven’s HVAC system that also has put out of commission, possibly for a year, the beloved Eye’s Gallery next door.

After a disappointingly slow summer, business owners have called for the public safety approach along the corridor, which saw a heavy police presence at night over the summer, to be revisited. Merchants said road closures on and around South Street on Saturday and Sunday during the summer was bad for business.