A police officer shot and killed a 14-year-old gunman early Sunday after the boy opened fire on a Bronx street corner.
Two rookie officers on foot patrol in the Melrose neighborhood heard gunfire shortly before 3 a.m., cops said.
Heading east on the north side of E. 151st St., the officers encountered a man running towards them in the middle of the street pursued by Shaaliver Douse, who was firing rounds from the south sidewalk near Courtlandt Ave., cops said.
Jeff Bachner/for New York Daily News
Picture of Shaaliver Douse, slain by NYPD officers who say he would not drop the gun he was brandishing, is part of a makeshift memorial in front of the dead boy's home on Washington Avenue, Sunday, August 4, 2013.
The uniformed cops, who joined the force in January, identified themselves as police and ordered Douse to drop his gun, police said.
When Douse failed to comply, one of the cops fired a single shot, striking the boy in the lower left jaw, officials said. Douse died at the scene.
"They literally were half a block away from where the shots were being fired," a police source said of the two responding officers. "They ran to the corner and there it was."
Vic Nicastro for New York Daily News
A large crowd of officers at the scene.
The cops were part of an Operation Impact team patrolling the high-crime area, police said.
Both officers, ages 26 and 27, were taken to Jacobi Medical Center and treated for trauma and ringing in the ears, cops said.
The man Douse was allegedly firing at has not been found or identified by police, officials said. Investigators are reviewing security camera footage of the incident.
DCPI
The gun a 14-year-old boy used to open fire on police officers in the Bronx.
Police recovered a blood-spattered black Astra .9mm handgun from the scene.
Douse, who lived a couple miles away in the Morris II public housing complex, had multiple prior arrests, police sources said.
Police say he shot a 15-year-old boy in the left shoulder on May 16 about 8:50 p.m. at Boston Rd. and Jefferson Place, just a mile and a half from where Douse died Sunday.
Vic Nicastro for New York Daily News
Neither officer was injured in the shooting; the 14-year-old gunman was killed.
His victim was treated at Lincoln Hospital and survived.
Douse was arrested a week later and charged with attempted murder, assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, officials said. Those charges were later dropped by the Bronx district attorney, according to News 12 Bronx.
But Douse faced an August 23 court appearance for a felony charge of criminal possession of a loaded handgun stemming from an unrelated October arrest in the Bronx, records show.
bpaddock@nydailynews.com
