WALNUT CREEK — Police with a regional SWAT team were negotiating late Thursday with the man suspected of shooting a woman to death near the Lindsay Wildlife Experience earlier in the day, this city’s first homicide of 2017.

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Walnut Creek police detail harrowing manhunt after deadly park shooting

Audio: Walnut Creek victim ‘shot four times,’ dispatcher says As of 11:30 p.m., officers were outside a condominium complex just north of Highway 4 in Martinez trying to convince a man in a silver Mercedes sedan to surrender. The complex is off of Howe Road near the interchange of Center Avenue and Pine Street, just north of the Tower Mart and its Chevron gas station.

Little was known about the suspect, who could be seen in the glare of a police spotlight sitting in the driver’s seat of the car wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap, periodically pointing a gun to his head.

Earlier during the standoff, police detained a second man whose connection to the suspect was not known. Walnut Creek police drove him away from the scene in the back of a police cruiser.

The shooting happened about 1:30 p.m., when several callers told police that a woman had been shot on the street in the 1900 block of First Avenue in Walnut Creek. Walnut Creek police Lt. Tom Cashion said the woman suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Police arrived in about two minutes, and they and other first responders worked unsuccessfully to save the woman’s life. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

About 6:35 p.m., police towed a silver four-door Chevrolet from a driveway on Lynvale Lane, a short street off Buena Vista Avenue south of the wildlife museum. Cashion said the vehicle was a rental that may have been used by the suspect, but he did not elaborate.

Police believe the suspect abandoned the Chevrolet on Lynvale Lane and then fled to a house a on San Luis Road, about three blocks south of the Lindsay museum. There the suspect may have been picked up by someone or took a second vehicle and drove to Martinez, where a Walnut Creek police officer spotted him. That officer and a Martinez officer pulled over the Mercedes, initiating the standoff. It was not known who the Mercedes was registered to.

Cashion said the victim likely knew her killer, but police have not identified the woman and did not know whether she lived in Walnut Creek. A tarp covering the body could be seen until a coroner’s van arrived about 3:30 p.m.

Police interviewed several witnesses and canvassed the nearby neighborhood into the evening. Cashion said police searched the house in the 1800 block of San Luis Road for evidence, but he didn’t believe anything of significance was found. Nearby residents were told to stay indoors while the search was conducted. Police dogs and a California Highway Patrol helicopter also aided in the search effort.

Police officers from several jurisdictions assembled a regional SWAT team on San Luis Road about 6 :30 p.m. before descending upon the Martinez condo complex, Cashion said. The team, consisted of officers from the Walnut Creek, San Ramon, Pleasant Hill, Martinez and BART police departments.

Before police caught up with the suspect, they were reviewing security camera footage from the Lindsay museum and sought other security camera tapes that could provide helpful evidence.

The Lindsay was locked down after the shooting was reported. “As soon as we heard there may be a nearby incident, we locked our doors and activated our lockdown procedure,” said Lindsay spokeswoman Elisabeth Nardi.

The last homicide in Walnut Creek occurred Aug. 27, 2016, when a 38-year-old man was shot near Crogan’s Bar on Locust Street.