SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The family of a 74-year-old Syracuse man fatally shot a week ago by a city police officer has many unanswered questions.

They don’t understand how DeWayne Watkins, who they described as a frail but mentally sharp man who used a cane to take daily walks in his South Side neighborhood, could have possibly had a gun, starter pistol or anything that resembled a gun. They said they have never seen him with any gun.

“My grandfather cared about his life,” said Taykola Gainey, 31, of Syracuse. “He wanted to live... It’s upsetting. Why did this have to happen?”

Watkins was armed with a starter pistol and menaced an officer when the officer shot him in front of his home at 319 W. Calthrop Ave. around 10 a.,m. on June 18, according to Syracuse police and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities have tried to explain what happened, but Watkins’s loved ones say many details released so far either don’t make sense to them or have led to even more questions for them.

For example, his family says he has never owned any type of gun or starter pistol. They’ve also never seen him hold a gun, Gainey said.

Syracuse firefighters responded to Watkins’s home for a medical call involving a 74-year-old man, Syracuse Police Chief Kenton Buckner said last week after the shooting. The firefighters then called for police assistance.

In the 911 dispatch, a call-taker can be heard stating the 74-year-old man was having breathing problems, according to an online archive of the call.

The family said they don’t know who called in a medical problem.

Ethel Brown, the woman Watkins lived with for nearly 30 years and considered his wife, said he never complained to her about any medical issues that day. Instead, Watkins told Brown that he was going back out for another walk that Tuesday morning.

Brown, 77, said she told him to lock the front door when he left for his walk because she wanted to rest.

“I didn’t hear him call (911) and he didn’t tell me (of any medical problems),” she said. “I heard the door lock. All of a sudden, I heard, ‘boom, boom, boom.’ I jumped up. The shots were so close.”

Brown said she looked out the screened-in front porch and saw an officer standing over Watkins.

The police chief initially said Watkins was shot multiple times in his lower body after he pointed a gun “in a threatening manner” at an officer on West Calthrop Avenue. But later that day, the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office said Watkins was armed with a starter pistol that the officer thought was a gun. The officer was not injured.

Watkins was transported to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse where he died.

The state Attorney General’s Office has taken over the investigation.

By state law, the AG’s office investigates police if a person is killed by police and there is a “significant question” whether he or she was armed at the time.

The makeshift memorial at 319 W. Calthrop Ave. near where 74-year-old grandfather DeWayne Watkins was shot by police. Watkins later died at the hospital. Family and friends held a vigil outside the Watkins’ home on Sunday. Photos, candles and teddy bears remained there Monday night. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

As family and friends wait for answers, they placed photos of Watkins in his front yard, surrounded by tealight candles and teddy bears. They held a vigil on Sunday.

They described Watkins as a gentleman, who once served in the military and cared for his community. Years ago, he used to hold cookouts and feed anyone who stopped by his West Calthrop Avenue home, his family said.

Years later, some of those same people he fed would offer him rides as he walked to the store with a cane. But he usually declined the offers, explaining how he needed to get the exercise, his granddaughter Taykola Gainey said.

“He was such a good soul, a good spirit,” said his niece, Betty Blackshear, of Clay. “He was not violent at all and he enjoyed life. He was the pillar of this community.”

Blackshear said she remembers how her uncle loved sitting on his front porch, talking with family and feeding dogs, cats, squirrels and birds. He also loved listening to jazz and soul music, and was always willing to help others, family members said.

Ari Reed said Watkins was her great-uncle and a kind man who drove her to a job interview at Wendy’s restaurant on the Fourth of July when she was younger.

“I was 17. He said, 'you need a job,” she said. So he made sure she got there. And she got the job.

Watkins spent most of his career driving tractor-trailers, but on occasion, also drove school buses.

As Watkins grew older, he also grew more frail. He suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, a chronic inflammatory lung disease, and arthritis in the knees. Although he had to give up smoking, his sickness didn’t stop him from taking walks to the corner store to buy Lottery scratch-offs every day or continuing to tell jokes.

“He’d turn a bad situation into a good situation -- fast -- by his jokes,” said Brown’s oldest son, C.J. Lollie, 40, of Syracuse. “He’d make you laugh.”

Lollie and his brother, Carzell Addison, 29, said they could never be upset with Watkins -- the man they considered a grandfather -- because “he’d have you cracking up.”

They also said they knew he was mentally sharp because of “the way he told his jokes made you think,” Addison said.

Now, Watkins’s family is hurting as they continue to think about how he died.

There are other reminders, too, like the bullet holes circled in chalk on the front of the house.

“There’s not much I can honestly say without getting upset,” Gainey said outside her grandfather’s house this week, “except, why did this have to happen?”

Watkins is survived by his companion, Ethel Brown; his three grandchildren, Taykola Gainey, Shabriah Gainey and Johnny Gainey; a step-daughter, Cynthia Jones; three step-grandchildren, C.J. Lollie, Carzell Addison and Cory Addison; and three great-grandsons, according to his obituary.

He is predeceased by his daughter, Maureen Gainey, who died from complications of childbirth in 1993; and his son, Xaiver C. “JJ” Spinks, who died in 1992.

Watkins’s calling hours and funeral are being held this morning at Gethers Funeral Services, 1520 South Ave., Syracuse.