In the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, a young man's life was cut short in a burst of daylight violence. On the afternoon of December 14, 2020, Conrad Waterton, a 22-year-old male, was found with a fatal gunshot wound to his head. The tragic incident occurred just after 2:30 p.m. in front of a building on Columbia Street, within the Red Hook Houses public housing complex where Waterton himself was a resident.
First responders rushed him to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, but his injury was too severe, and he was pronounced dead.
The investigation into the shooting continued for months without an immediate arrest, leaving a sense of uncertainty in the community. Detectives from the 76th Precinct and NYPD PSA 1 worked the case, seeking a break that would lead them to the person responsible for Waterton's death. The search for a suspect carried on into the following year, a period of anxious waiting for justice for the young victim.
A significant development in the case came five months later, in May 2021. Police arrested 31-year-old Tyquan Walden in connection with the murder. The circumstances of his apprehension were rather fortuitous; officers came across his illegally parked car just a few blocks from where the shooting had taken place. When they ran his license to issue a parking ticket, they discovered that Walden was listed as a person of interest in Waterton's homicide. Walden, a resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, was taken into custody without incident and subsequently charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
