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Road rage shooting suspect has criminal background
Court documents revealed the man accused of shooting a man to death in a road rage incident also shot someone else a couple of years ago.
AUSTIN, Texas - Court documents revealed the man accused of shooting a man to death in a road rage incident also shot someone else a couple of years ago.
Austin police said Jacob Gonzalez was involved in a shootout in 2023, but the charges were dismissed.
The backstory:
Austin police responded to an area near Martin Luther King Boulevard and the southbound I-35 service road just after 4 p.m. Saturday, March 8.
Jail records show 21-year-old Jacob Gonzalez, Jr. was charged with murder.
An affidavit states Gonzalez told police he shot the victim, identified as Adan Marez, after Marez approached his vehicle at a traffic light.
A witness at the scene told police that they were driving when they cut in front of the car driven by Gonzalez, the affidavit states. The driver told police that Gonzalez passed him and started throwing trash out of his car.
RELATED: Austin road rage incident leads to deadly shooting; man arrested
Both vehicles were stopped at the red light on the service road at Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard when Marez got out of the passenger side of the vehicle and approached Gonzalez's car, the affidavit states. That's when the driver said he heard a gunshot and Marez grabbed his chest.
Gonzalez told police that he grabbed his gun when Marez approached his vehicle, the affidavit states. He then told police that he thought Marez was "going to swing on" him before he shot him and Marez ran back towards the vehicle he was in before collapsing, the affidavit states.
Police said Gonzalez said the shot was supposed to be a warning shot and he "didn't mean for it to be fatal," the affidavit states.
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Family of man killed in road rage incident speaks out
The sister of a man who was shot to death in a road rage incident is speaking out. Adan Marez, 54, who went by Adam, was shot and killed on Saturday, March 8, on the I-35 service road near MLK.
Local perspective:
"He was a happy guy. He was a loving guy. He loved to fish. He was an artist. He liked to paint," Carmen Castillo said about her brother, Adan Marez.
Adan Marez, known as Adam, was everything to Castillo.
"We still can't believe that it happened, you know? I mean, what a way to lose your life, you know, it was just horrible for this to happen to him," Castillo said.
RELATED: Austin road rage: Family of man killed in deadly shooting speaks out
Jacob Gonzalez's criminal history
Dig deeper:
Court records revealed this wasn’t the first time Gonzalez shot someone.
Police said in 2023, Gonzalez and another man got into a shoot-out at a gas station. A man who recognized the vehicle belonging to people who had been caught causing problems and committing crimes in his neighborhood, pulled up and blocked it in, and then confronted the people inside the vehicle.
Detectives said video showed the man shooting at Gonzalez, then Gonzalez fired back. Thirty-five shell casings were found in the parking lot. Gonzalez was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful carrying of a weapon.
"If you're the police, if you're the district attorney, if you're the entire criminal justice apparatus, and you have a young person who's underage, and they're walking around with a firearm, and they're getting into trouble with that firearm, you should move very quickly, you should intervene quickly," St. Edward’s University Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Carsten Andresen said.
Both charges were dismissed.
Jacob Gonzalez, 21
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The Travis County District Attorney's Office released a statement on the incident:
"In this case, the information presented in the PC Affidavit and evidence collected indicated that the defendant acted in self-defense.
Our review of the misdemeanor charge revealed evidentiary deficiencies. Since we could not meet our evidentiary burden, we dismissed the charge with a sworn affidavit that the suspected weapon was not in the possession of the defendant, nor any other firearms or weapons, after law enforcement was unable to locate the firearm either."
"Nineteen-years-old and you're getting into a shootout with somebody. It doesn't take a genius just to see what's going to happen within the next few years, especially if you feel like you did nothing wrong and you're backed up by the criminal justice system," Andresen said.
Just three years later, Gonzalez admitted to shooting Marez.
"I just hope that they don't let him out because if he'd done it more than once, no telling if he's going to do it again," Castillo said.
What's next:
Gonzalez is being held in the Travis County Jail on $1,000,000 bond.
He has a hearing on April 2, 2025.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Meredith Aldis and previous coverage