‘You took my best friend away from me’: Oakland woman gets 11 years for fatal shooting during early morning fight
OAKLAND — A woman who allegedly stated, “I’m not going to hurt you, I’m going to kill you,” before fatally shooting her victim during an early morning argument has been sentenced to 11 years in state prison through a plea deal, court records show.
Renee Colvin, 33, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for the 11-year sentence; prosecutors agreed to drop a murder charge against her. Colvin shot and killed 33-year-old Slai’On Carter with Carter’s own pistol during a heated argument that occurred around 4 a.m. on Dec. 3, 2021.
Before Colvin was sentenced, she heard a victim impact statement submitted by Carter’s brother, Deangelo Williams, and read aloud in the courtroom by a prosecutor.
“You took my best friend away from me. I hope you never have to feel the pain of losing a sibling or a child like you caused my mother,” Williams said, adding that he wished Colvin “had got life.”
Carter, a transgender woman whose friends knew her as Nikai, was gunned down inside a Dodge pickup truck on the 1400 block of Castro Street. She was shot once in the face, allegedly by Colvin, after the two had a playful argument that escalated into a fight, according to witness testimony. One witness said Colvin told Carter in a “demonic” voice that she would kill her moments before the shooting.
The defense argued the shooting was accidental and that Colvin didn’t know Carter had a gun in her purse when she made that statement. Further, the defense claims, the gun “went off” when a third person placed Colvin in a “bear hug” to try and wrestle the pistol out of her hands.
Hours earlier, Carter fired the pistol at another location to break up a fight between two friends at 14th Street and Martin Luther King Way, then left the area after the police arrived, according to witness testimony at Colvin’s 2022 preliminary hearing. The preliminary hearing magistrate held Colvin to answer on a murder charge, and commented on the senseless nature of the incident, saying he was “struggling to find a motive, other than extremely poor judgment based upon alcohol and cocaine.”
Colvin was formally sentenced on Oct. 17.