After multiple shootings, paralysis, fights with jail deputies, Oakland woman is going to prison

OAKLAND — Over the past four years, Tyja Braswell has survived two shootings, one of which left her paralyzed from the waist down, and another that killed her friend. She’s also been hit with two cases that carry a potential life sentence.

Despite it all, Braswell has avoided prison throughout the ordeal. But that’s soon about to change, court records show.

Nearly two years after she allegedly shot at a woman in a passing car, Braswell, 25, has pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and a probation violation, with the expectation to receive a nine-year prison term when she’s sentenced on Feb. 20. Despite having been charged in two separate shootings and allegedly violating pretrial release terms dozens of times over the years, Braswell was only jailed just last July, records show.

The plea agreement, struck in January, marks the end four years of a legal saga that started March 19, 2022, when Braswell was arrested and charged with murder in the International Boulevard shootout that killed  64-year-old Rodney Davis. Police say Davis was at the gas station to buy drugs from Braswell that night, but had the misfortune of standing there when Braswell and a man named Stavon Moore got into a shootout.

Davis was struck in the head, and Braswell was hit by gunfire and paralyzed. At his murder trial, Moore’s lawyer argued that Braswell was the true agressor because she threatened Moore’s girlfriend, Tamia Foster, and reached for a gun first. Moore was acquitted of murder and attempted murder, but later received a six-year prison term for gun possession.

The whole thing was motivated by a feud between Braswell and Foster, who argued loudly before the shooting. Foster was seen on camera passing a gun to Moore just before the gunfire started, video of the incident shows.

It wasn’t Braswell’s first experience with gun violence; she witnessed a murder at age 10, lost her father to violence at age 12 and survived being shot at age 14, her attorney wrote in court papers. But it also wouldn’t be her final experience.

At around 2:30 a.m. on April 29, 2023, Braswell was driving through Oakland with her friend, Marie Villa Bedford, when a man named Bernard Jimmerson allegedly riddled their car with bullets because he was upset at their noisy vehicle. Bedford was killed, and Jimmerson was charged with murder in a case that remains pending. Braswell avoided being hit by gunfire but not legal repercussions; being out at that hour was a violation of her pretrial release conditions in the murder case, and prosecutors attempted to jail her for it.

Instead, months later, Braswell was detained at a medical facility “at significant cost to the county,” her lawyer wrote in a legal motion. She remained there until October 2023, when she struck a deal with prosecutors. Her outcome was much more lenient than Moore’s; prosecutors dropped murder and attempted murder charges, and agreed to seek a two-year probation term for gun possession.

Seven months later, her problems with Foster landed Braswell in court again.

On May 30, 2024, Braswell spotted Foster driving by in Oakland, and fired a pistol at the car, according to court records. The vehicle was struck by gunfire but Foster wasn’t hurt. Prosecutors charged Braswell with attempted murder, but once again, she was granted pretrial release. After she racked up several violations, she was jailed last July, court records show.

The problems didn’t end there. In court filings, Alameda County deputies have described instances where Braswell violently resisted their efforts to take her to a hospital, attempted to grab an IV pole and — in the deputy’s view — use it to assault police, threatened self-harm or deliberated stabbed herself with scissors, and used homophobic language towards police or threatened to kill deputies.

In one filing, a deputy described in her report how she and a colleague struggled to restrain Braswell, who at the time was laying down on a hospital bed.

“Braswell thrashed both of her arms and attempted to break free of my grasp. I ordered Braswell to stop, but she ignored by commands and tried to bite my hand. I pulled Braswell’s left arm away from her face to prevent being bit,” Dep. Sierra Scalise wrote int he report. “Deputy (Matthew) Hildenbrand handcuffed Braswell’s right wrist, but she pulled away and momentarily was able to break free from his grasp.”

A few moments later, “Braswell screamed, ‘get the (expletive) away from me,’ and began spitting in our direction,” followed by a death threat, Scalise wrote.

Braswell’s plea deal in Alameda County has no bearing on Contra Costa, where she faces charges of conspiracy and burglary in a Jan. 14, 2024 incident, court records show.