According to investigators, around 3:00 a.m. two rookie NYPD officers heard shots fired in the Melrose section of the Bronx.
They spotted a man with a gun at East 151 Street and Courtland Avenue.
The boy's aunt wanted Eyewitness News to see it, the street corner where 14-year-old Shaaliver Douse was shot and killed with a single police bullet.
Investigators recovered a bloody, semi-automatic pistol and released surveillance video, showing Douse approaching a group of men, and then firing a series of shots, narrowly missing one of the men who took off down the street.
(Click here to see surveillance video from the May 16th shooting)
The officer said Douse opened fire after the boy pointed the gun at him.
"What if he did have a gun? That gives you the right to shoot him in the head, a kid?" said Kquwana Barcene, the gunman's aunt.
"A gun fired by a 14-year-old could just as easily kill anyone like me or you," Eyewitness News reporter N.J. Burkett said.
"I agree," Barcene said.
While many in the community are mourning Douse's death, they are also asking questions. The boy was already facing weapons charges for a similar shooting three months ago.
This latest shooting took place a mile from his home at 3:00 in the morning.
"You got to point some fingers at the parents too for this man. What is he doing out at that time in the morning anyway, this is crazy, man!" a neighbor said.
"My nephew was not a bad kid, so what he was outside, he was not a bad kid. So he's outside at 3 o'clock in the morning, that makes him a bad kid, that don't make no sense," Barcene said.
But Martha Collins doesn't buy that. She raised her daughter in this neighborhood as a single-parent.
"At three o'clock in the morning what was that child doing out here? You have to raise your child in the proper manner and you have to know where they are and keep up with them at all times, not sometimes, all times," said Martha Collins, a former Melrose resident.
Eyewitness News found Tracey Jones passing out flyers for a daycare center. She admitted there is little opportunity for teenagers.
"Once they get to 13, 14, 15," Burkett said.
"It's like they are on their own and parents still have to work to provide for their family even at that age," said Tracey Jones, a daycare center worker.
A black semi-automatic firearm (Astra A100- 9mm) was recovered at the scene of Sunday's shooting.
The officers, ages 26 and 27, were each appointed to the department in January.
Neither officer was wounded, but both were taken to Jacoby Hospital for treatment of trauma.