A man who crashed into a funeral home in Hialeah after being shot is now charged with a hate crime.

Hialeah officers responded after Luis Alberto Gonzalez, 50, had crashed into the Memorial Plan funeral home on Palm Avenue on Jan 2.

The officers found Gonzalez sitting in his red pickup truck. He had been shot in the head.

He claimed he had been shot by one of two black men who had just robbed him after leaving Jerry and Joe's Pizza.

Gonzalez said he then tried to run over the men who robbed him, and they opened fire and shot him in the head. He then lost control of his truck and crashed into the funeral home.

When police identified two suspects in the shooting, Andy Alexander Jr., 20, and Tarvis James, 21, on Jan. 4, the pair told a different story. According to Hialeah police, Alexander and James told inveestigators that they were walking in the street near Jerry and Joe's Pizza when Gonzalez started yelling racial slurs at them and telling them to leave his city. Police said Alexander and James told them that Gonzalez revved the engine of his pickup truck and accelerated toward them.

The pair said they started running away and that James pulled out a .25-caliber pistol and shot at Gonzalez three times, hitting him once int he side of the head, Hialeah police said.

Alexander and James got into their SUV and drove away, police said. They didn't report the incident to police.

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After an investigation, police said they spoke to Gonzalez, who they said admitted he had not been the victim of a robbery.

Hialeah police said the gun that was used in the shooting was legal.

Gonzalez was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Unit for treatment. He was arrested Tuesday on two counts of second-degree attempted murder with prejudice with the classification of a hate crime and filing a false report to police.

If convicted, Gonzalez faces up to 40 years in prison.

Hialeah Police Chief Mark Overton said this is the first case of a reported violent hate crime in the city.

Overton said Alexander and James did not go to the police right away because the media had already branded them as suspects and they feared the police wouldn't believe them.

The police chief said other issues pertaining to Alexander and James will go before the state attorney's office but that they will not face any charges.