He sat next to a daughter and 1-year-old grandchild. Next minute, the man was shot dead

It was just past 2 a.m. Wednesday morning and Joseph Gabriel Gonzalez was in the passenger seat of his daughter’s Chevy Malibu — her 1-year-old child on her lap in the driver’s seat — when two men approached.

Gabrielle Gonzalez said she got nervous when one of the men walked behind the car. A few seconds later, as many as a dozen bullets ripped through the driver’s side door and front windshield.

Joseph Gonzalez was struck several times, including in his head, and died on the spot, his daughter said. Gabrielle Gonzalez, 20 and her son Legend escaped unmarked and unharmed.

She thinks the argument was over a bag of weed.

“I tried to save him,” she said from in front of the car stereo shop at 2155 Opa-locka Blvd., where her father worked and lived. “He was dead as soon as they shot him.”

Joseph Gonzalez, who has a lengthy criminal history involving drugs, fathered seven children, his daughter said. Two of them are dead, one killed in an accident, the other murdered. Another daughter, Geeleen Gonzalez, said there was nothing unusual about family visiting her father in the middle of the night.

“He worked during the day, at night. He was always working,” Geeleen Gonzalez said. “They were just in the car talking.”

When Opa-locka police arrived, they said Joseph Gonzalez was already dead. Miami-Dade police, which conducts homicide investigations for Opa-locka, said the shooting happened at 2:09 a.m. in a small parking lot just outside a cluster of small warehouses where Joseph Gonzalez had his shop.

State records show that Joseph Gonzalez once owned a company called Joker’s Custom Auto Sound in Broward County. State records also show a criminal history of at least 20 arrests and several convictions dating back to 1989, many for drug possession, traffic violations and domestic violence in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Gonzalez has also been arrested for grand theft, larceny and several times for probation violation. He is listed as a habitual traffic offender.

Gonzalez’s daughter Gabrielle Gonzalez said she was visiting her father with her infant son because she hadn’t seen him in a while.

“We were just in the car talking,” she said, when a man approached and signaled to her father. The two of them went into the small warehouse where Gonzalez lived for about three minutes, she said. Her father got back in the car. The man left.

About 10 minutes later, Gabrielle Gonzalez said, another man with long dreadlocks came by and asked her father if he had any marijuana. When her father said he was sold out, the man left.

About 15 minutes later, she said, the two men reappeared, wandered around the car, then opened fire. She said she initially went numb.

“Legend was in my lap,” Gabrielle Gonzalez said. “He was screaming and crying. I can’t tell you if there was a prior beef, but my understanding is it was about drugs. He was dead as soon as they shot him.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 5:43 AM with the headline "He sat next to a daughter and 1-year-old grandchild. Next minute, the man was shot dead."