By Kate Mather and Ari Bloomekatz

Joseph Gatto was a fixture in the quiet Silver Lake neighborhood he had long called home. Friends knew the 78-year-old father of state Assemblyman Mike Gatto as an easy person to talk to, a well-liked artist who spent decades teaching at schools across Los Angeles.

He was a patriarch — not just to his close-knit family, but to a vast community of artists, former students and neighbors. So when news spread Thursday that Gatto had been shot dead in his home the previous night, those who knew him said it didn't make sense.

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Source: http://www.latimes.com