‘I played dead’: Man gets 16 years for Oakland homicide during carjacking

OAKLAND A San Francisco man has received years in state prison for killing a man during what the suspect allegedly explained police was an attempted carjacking court records show Ibrahim Saleh pleaded no contest to manslaughter in the Aug shooting death of Esau Davis of Oakland Davis was fatally shot on the block of nd Avenue in Oakland and Saleh later confessed according to police testimony During Saleh s preliminary hearing a woman testified she was planning to count drugs from Davis that day when she ended up being shot in the kneecap by his killer She watched her friend fall to the ground dead and huddled against a wall pretending she d been killed as well until the getaway car drove off I played dead and I just laid over and looked at the concrete she testified She then attempted to walk away but couldn t and got a ride to a hospital Saleh was arrested and charged three months after the homicide By then there d been a second killing at the same location Mario Thomas was shot in the head and killed by a friend who claimed it was an accident The shooting happened at a curbside memorial site for Davis who was friends with Thomas just one day after Davis killing court records show Police say Saleh was identified after investigators learned his car was used in the shooting and that he attempted to cover up the homicide by reporting his license plates stolen When Saleh was arrested he not only confessed but named his two alleged accomplices one of whom would go on to be the suspect in a Oakland shooting that caused the victim to crash his car and break his arm court records show Saleh first claimed to have been the driver then later admitted he was the shooting according to police The circumstance stalled for years in part due to concerns that Saleh was mentally incompetent to stand trial court records show Saleh will receive credit for the nearly seven years he spent behind bars while his event was pending Prosecutors charged Saleh with murder in In late April he agreed to plead no contest to manslaughter as part of a plea deal and he was formally sentenced to prison in May court records show