OAKLAND — A San Francisco man has received 16 years in state prison for killing a man during what the suspect allegedly told police was an attempted carjacking, court records show.

Ibrahim Saleh, 27, pleaded no contest to manslaughter in the Aug. 26, 2018 shooting death of Esau Davis, 38, of Oakland. Davis was fatally shot on the 1300 block of 72nd Avenue in Oakland, and Saleh later confessed, according to police testimony.

During Saleh’s 2020 preliminary hearing, a woman testified she was planning to “score” 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, 36, 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 2020 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. He claimed it was an attempted carjacking.

Prosecutors charged Saleh with murder in 2018. The case 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 case was pending.

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.