Man arrested in slaying outside Walnut Creek bar

Walnut Creek police investigators made an arrest Sunday in a weekend shooting outside a downtown nightclub that killed a 38-year-old father and husband-to-be.

Larry Griffin, 24, of Bay Point was taken into custody in connection with the killing of 38year-old Courtney Brown. Griffin was expected to be booked into Martinez Detention Facility on suspicion of homicide.

The killing of Brown, who was shot three times in the back outside Redux Lounge early Saturday, was the city’s first homicide of the year and only the second in the city in almost five years.

The attack happened around 1:30 a.m. as patrons of the nightclub and nearby Crogan’s Sports Bar and Grill were spilling onto the streets as the nighttime hot spots in the city’s popular downtown were closing, said Walnut Creek police Lt. Tom Cashion.

Brown, police said, had been at Crogan’s shortly before he was shot.

The gunman shot Brown in the back near the bars at Locus and Cypress streets and ran off, officials said.

Nearby officers heard the gunfire and quickly scrambled to the scene, where they found Brown on the ground. Paramedics took him to John Muir Medical Center, where he died.

Officials said Brown leaves a fiancee and daughter.

Police scoured the area with the help of a K-9 unit but were initially unable to find the shooter, who was last seen running west on Cypress and then south on California Boulevard.

On Sunday, investigators followed up on a lead, and the Central County Regional SWAT Team conducted a search of a home in Bay Point and arrested Griffin about 5:30 p.m.

The last homicide in the usually peaceful East Bay city was a murdersuicide in August 2015. In that case, a 21-year-old Lafayette man shot to death his former girlfriend in her Walnut Creek home before turning the gun on himself.

There were no homicides over the three previous years in Walnut Creek, according to police data submitted to the FBI.