The mayor said, "there's nothing we can do to undo the tragedy for the family, but we've just got to get guns out of the hands of kids and of the people who should not have them."

Flatbush is a place where many people distrust the police, and gun violence is part of everyday life, some residents say.

"As a black man growing up in Flatbush, you just expect to be harassed by the cops, pulled over, arrested and now just straight up killed," said Shanduke McPhatter, a 35-year-old former gang member who works with young men in the neighborhood. "That's what's happening out here. And kids are doing it to themselves to -- they doing the crime, too -- and you got cops who don't live here coming in here so hard, too hard. That's how we got a situation like Kimani Gray."

The violence over Gray's death will eventually subside, but the intense distrust of police will rear itself again violently soon enough in Flatbush, said Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele, a senior organizer with the NAACP.

A Brooklyn resident for 41 years, he and McPhatter told CNN there are big problems to address.

"There are no community centers here," McPhatter said. "That has to change. You have to be here and get involved.

"And for the cops, they just need to take that badge away and talk, talk to us like human beings. We're asking them to do that, and we've gotta open up and talk to them. We have to do our part, too. Otherwise, this is just going to keep happening."