Two recent police academy graduates shot and killed 14-year-old Shaaliver Douse in the South Bronx early Sunday morning. The confrontation began when the cops followed the sound of gunfire to 151st Street and Courtland Avenue at around 3 a.m. There, they saw Douse firing a 9mm handgun at a young man who was fleeing the scene. (The New York Daily News’s Oren Yaniv has posted security camera footage of that here.) According to multiple reports, the officers identified themselves and ordered the teenager to drop his weapon, which he refused to do. Some reports say that Douse pointed the gun at the officers, though initial claims that he shot at them turned out to be false. One of the officers then fired at Douse, hitting him in the jaw and killing him on the spot. The cops — a 26-year-old and a 27-year-old who were assigned to the neighborhood as part of Operation Impact, which places rookie officers in high-crime areas — were not injured during the incident. Back in May, Douse was accused of attempted murder in connection with the shooting and wounding of a 15-year-old, though the charges were later dropped after the victim and a witness stopped cooperating with investigators.
This post has been updated throughout.
