Walnut Creek police are looking for a gunman they say fired several shots into another man as he was leaving a local nightclub at Locust and Cypress streets at 1:28 a.m. Saturday – a virtually unprecedented act of gun violence in the very heart of the city.
Investigators reported that their dispatch center received reports of several shots fired in the area early Saturday with officers arriving on the scene and locating a man down with three gunshot wounds to the back.
Police said the victim, identified as Courtney Brown, 38, was transported to John Muir Medical Center where he later died from his injuries. No other persons were injured during this incident, according to police, although patrons of Redux Lounge and Crogan’s Sports Bar and Grill were leaving the clubs at the time.
Police said Brown had been at Crogan’s prior to the shooting.
Witnesses in the area, home to several popular local nightspots and restaurants, reported a black male suspect was last seen running from the scene of the shooting. Detectives described the gunman as black, in his 20s, approximately 6 feet tall and 160 pounds.
He was last seen running west on Cypress towards California Boulevard and then south on the boulevard, according to detectives.
Police said all preliminary indications are that the shooting was not a “random event.”
Passersby in the heavily trafficked area Saturday were just learning of the incident, expressing surprise – and regret – that someone had been killed there.
“I just can’t imagine anyone doing something like that,” said Pia Wentz, in search of breakfast and coffee downtown Saturday morning. “I mean, we know these things can happen anywhere these days but to think that someone would kill another person here… unbelievable.”
Sergei Andronikov, visiting from San Francisco and breakfasting with local friends, shook his head as news of the shooting filtered through the area.
“It is accepted that this sort of thing can happen at any moment,” he said. “And that is what I think is so sad about it.”
Police ask that if you have any information regarding this incident to please contact Detective Leonard at 925-256-3523.
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We’re down there about every other weekend. Insane.
Bars letting out. some type of beef? payback?
OMG. Missed this by about half an hour. And glad we did. Wow.
We were downtown with friends earlier. So very sad to hear this.
Insane. Multiple gunshots at that hour at that location. Insane.
This sounds like revenge for something.
The bar are all letting out at that time and they either took this out on the street or the shooter was waiting for him outside. It will be interesting to see what the police dig up on this.
Shot him DEAD???? Man what is up with that???
I’ve lived here 15 years and I don’t remember anything like this happening downtown. Hopefully an isolated and PUNISHED occurrence. Hope they catch him soon.
O no!
Stopped going to bars in that area since i was asked to remove my cap because it was “the wrong color and might cause gang violence.” I was hoping things had gotten better.
Was he at Crogans with the guy or was he ambushed outside?
Security cameras?
The violence just over the hill once again finds its way into white suburbia for a moment. We are shocked! You can build a wall and militarize the police or you can work the problem.
Sadly, you can’t change someone’s mentality.
Three to the back. It doesnt come any colder than that. Hope they catch the guy.
So sad and so completely pointless
Sorry to say but it doesn’t surprise us one bit. Walnut Creek has been drastically changing in the last 5 Years. Walnut Creek, for 40 or 50 years has been an upscale ,chic town of shopping and dining. But recently the tolerance of homeless & street people,
and an influx of lower types has resulted in the car thefts, burglaries and purse snatching . Now we have murders. it seems the city officials are wanting this type of town with how they’re managing. Whilel we did visit Broadway Plaza this past week, we really have started staying away from Walnut Creek after ( all in one visit) being hit up for money twice , then seeing a man selling soap from a wheelchair across from Tiffany’s , and a Bongo player by the Apple Store. If we want this, will just go to Berkeley or Rockridge. For now we shop and dine in Lafayette or Danville.
I am commenting specifically about Greg T’s long comment above. I have lived here moments from downtown for 11 years. Yes, it has changed dramatically in many ways. It is both sad and frustrating.
I am only addressing a part of your comment, Greg T., about how you were in BP this past week and unfortunately “(all in one visit)…..and saw a man selling soap from a wheelchair across from Tiffany’s….”
How awful for you, Greg T., to have to see a man in a wheelchair across from Tiffany’s! Bill McGeehan was born with Cerebral Palsy and sits in his wheelchair selling his handmade soaps to actually earn a living — in the exact same location he’s been doing that since 2008. Not really any different than a Tiffany’s employee making their living. Links to articles about Bill at end of this, if you’d like to read and actually learn something.
Bill is doing what he physically can to eek out a living and not look to others or the system for money, as well as, getting himself out in the land of the living to interact with people and probably not feel isolated (My own guess after caring for my own mother who became a non-speaking quadriplegic at the age of 36 and remained that way until she died at 60 years old.). 24 years suddenly in an electric wheelchair and no voice — but a fully functional brain. Try it sometime.
My mother whose brain was intact, could no longer speak out loud nor move as a result of a chiropractic neck adjustment gone wrong. You, Greg T., had you laid eyes on her, might feel the same way as you seem to feel about Bill. And yet, you would have no knowledge of how she ended up in a wheelchair thru no fault of her own; like Bill.
EVERYONE in her life prior (except her children) fell by the wayside. It takes effort to have a conversation with someone who only nods their head or uses a talking computer. Not to mention the logistics of getting that person in their electric wheelchair out and about (when my mom
suddenly became disabled — unlike Bill the soap guy being born with CP — there was no BART to ride nearby; no local wheelchair van services which COST; not to mention it is EXPENSIVE to be disabled due to the equipment necessary to do ordinary things — such as get outside). Bill comes to WC since shoppers come to WC. It’s his business and a real one at that from everything I’ve read and heard.
So many disabled people, including my mother, would give anything to be out there in the public interacting and just have others look at them and talk to them like normal able bodied people. Again I suggest, try it sometime. But society doesn’t often do that and people shy away. People STARE and make judgments about them and their situation.
Maybe Greg T. (or others who might feel similarly or are quick to judge someone in a wheelchair across from Tiffany’s) you should go back to Broadway Plaza and take a few minutes to speak to Bill about why he is making and selling his Hope Soap and perhaps realize he’s a human no different than you (except you can jump in your car and drive yourself away to shop in Lafayette or Danville). Trust me, I’m pretty sure there are many wheelchair bound people shut in their homes and not able to get out and about as they might like to in those cities, too. If you knew one person well who was confined to live in a wheelchair, you would feel differently and hopefully wouldn’t write such a thing when sharing complaints about how WC has changed.
And you saying if you wanted to see this, you could go to Berkeley……, you must be ignorant to the fact that Berkeley has long been known to be one of the only cities in the entire Bay Area that welcomes wheelchair users and tries VERY hard to help them living as independently as humanly possible. There’s that word “human,” again. That is why you see so many in wheelchairs should you decide to grace Berkeley with your presence.
Read up and stop judging because you never know how unbelievably fast you, Greg T., might end up in the same boat (wheelchair). My mom is the perfect example of fine one day — wheelchair the next.
And, no, I do not know Bill personally. Just his story below.
http://patch.com/california/walnutcreek/who-is-the-soap-guy
http://patch.com/california/walnutcreek/keeping-hope-and-goat-soap-alive-and-well-in-walnut-creek
http://www.hopemadesoap.com/site/b414a8ce363d45db8846271cbf8ba8b3/default?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hopemadesoap.com%2FABOUT__BILL.html#2596
David, you said we need to “work the problem”. The trouble is all the work to solve the problem has not worked. More and more money, and more and more social programs has not worked. We need to find something new!
I’ll accept my codemnation, and ask you please accept my apology.
I did not mean to hurt anyones feelings, or livelihood in my comments of how Walnut Creek has changed. Let downtown change as much, and as ‘eclectic’ as you want,
but we have a choice of where we go to coffee, dine and shop… and if Walnut Creek becomes too much more ‘eclectic’, we will choose to go elsewhere. As I stated, we already have started staying in either Lafayette , or Danville.
PS : I bet it would surprise you that we have spoken with Bill and said kind words to him.
We’re not monsters.
Nice, Greg. Appreciate the tone here… Thanks for keeping the comment stream
flowing!
Why aren’t they saying where he is from?
More information please. This has a lot of people watching and concerned.
I’m not familiar with the after-midnight club scene in Walnut Creek. Are the bars near this incident known to attract a “rough crowd” from out of town?
Any Clubbers out there who care to weigh in?
Larry Griffin (24 year old Bay Point resident) is in custody. Good job Central County Regional SWAT team!
Glad to hear the PD has made a quick arrest for this crime. Now if we can just crack down on those scurrilous bongo players we’ll be getting somewhere.
Glad they caught hgim
Nothing good happens after midnight. Early to bed, early to rise.