OAKLAND — In the latest instance of violence in a high-prostitution part of town known as “The Blade,” an Oakland man has been charged with holding a pistol to a woman’s head and beating her with the gun, then running to a BMW where a female companion was waiting.
Clarence “C-Money” Brown III, 29, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, pandering and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail, with a preliminary hearing set to start on Tuesday.
The alleged attack occurred near International Boulevard and 13th Avenue in Oakland, an area known as a hangout for sex workers that has been the subject of several recent violent crime investigations. Just one block up the street, several adult sex workers and teens were charged with stabbing and beating a man to death during an argument there in March. In April, a man was charged with stabbing a sex worker he picked up on International Boulevard, while out on bail for allegedly shooting a man at a golf course with a BB gun.
On the night of May 30, undercover Oakland police officers were doing surveillance when they reportedly witnessed Brown striking a woman with a pistol and holding the gun to her head. He then allegedly threw her into the door of a liquor store and fled to a 2013 BMW, where a woman was waiting.
The officers said in court records that they gave chase but the woman — later identified by police as 34-year-old Brittany Rivera — sped away and escaped. The California Highway Patrol arrested Brown the next day. When Rivera showed up to an Oakland courthouse to watch Brown’s arraignment on June 5, she was also arrested, and later charged with accessory after the fact. She has since posted bail, records show.
Brown was not allowed to possess guns in part due to a 2018 conviction for vehicular manslaughter, which stemmed from a tragic 2017 crash that claimed the lives of Brown’s 5-year-old daughter, Neveah Brown, and Brown’s friend, 23-year-old Dion Christy, according to court records and media reports. He was later sentenced to four years in state prison.
When Brown was arrested, he denied being involved in pimping and claimed that he struck the woman with a BB gun — not a real firearm — because she had been rude to him, according to police. Authorities say that investigators searched Brown’s phone and found conversations with Rivera where they allegedly discussed pimping the woman, how to show her “the ropes” of prostitution and the need to “save every penny so we can move.”
Rivera also spoke with police, saying she drove away to avoid having the BMW be impounded for expired registration and denying that she’d seen Brown do anything illegal, according to authorities.