OAKLAND — The man suspected of killing a person, then shooting up an Oakland fire truck minutes later, has been sentenced to 20 years through a plea deal, records show.
William Hobdy, 54, pleaded no contest to manslaughter for the killing of 38-year-old Ronald Sanders, as well as attempting to murder two Oakland firefighters. Alameda County prosecutors dropped a murder charge against Hobdy as part of the deal, and he was sentenced last January, court records show.
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Hobdy was transferred to state prison on Jan. 27 and is currently housed at the California Healthcare Facility in Stockton, records show.
Hobdy killed Sanders at around 8:41 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2022, on the 1400 block of Center Street in West Oakland’s Prescott neighborhood. Witnesses reportedly heard him yelling he would shoot someone shortly beforehand, authorities said.
The firefighters responded to the fatal shooting, and were present at the crime scene, then left to another nearby car. Along the way they reportedly encountered Hobdy, who was irate and waving a gun. Assistant Fire Marshal Javan Smith would later testify he sensed danger and ordered his colleague, Eduardo Ramos, into the car just before the shooting started.
“Almost immediately after Ed got into the vehicle, I heard a number of gunshots and could hear and feel bullets striking the vehicle,” Smith testified at the 2023 preliminary hearing. “I also heard the individual yelling and screaming at us … There was expletives and screaming and then gunshots.”
Smith said he didn’t get a good look at the shooter and couldn’t positively identify anyone. The preliminary hearing judge, Jason Chin, said he had “serious doubts” about whether the prosecution’s case would sway a jury, based “solely” on what was presented at the preliminary hearing. But Chin held Hobdy to answer on all charges, noting the relatively low legal bar for pretrial hearings.
Hobdy was convicted of manslaughter in 1996. That killing occurred in the 1600 block of 15th Street, less than two blocks from where Sanders was shot and killed, authorities said. The time that Hobdy spent in jail while his case was pending will be subtracted from his prison sentence.