The NYPD mother of the naked, gun-toting Harlem man fatally shot by cops questioned on Thursday why fellow Finest had to kill her son — as she demanded an external investigation into the death.

“This has to be fully investigated by an outside source ’cause it makes no sense,'” Bronx cop and grieving mom Maria Hernandez told The Post via text message, referring to son Victor Hernandez. “Did they even try to tase him?”

Cops were called early Wednesday to the Frederick Douglass Boulevard apartment building where the younger Hernandez served as super — finding him nude and holding a 9mm handgun in a second-floor hallway, authorities have said.

Victor Hernandez, 29, charged Officer Christopher Wintermute, punching him several times in the face before he was gunned down by other cops, police have said.

Wintermute, 34, was also struck by a round in the chest in the 2 a.m. run-in, though he escaped virtually unharmed when the slug was halted by his bulletproof vest.

It was initially unclear whether that round was friendly fire, but officials announced Thursday that it was, in fact, fired by Hernandez.

While Wintermute was discharged from the hospital within a matter of hours, Maria Hernandez, a 19-year department veteran currently stationed at the 52nd Precinct, had the grim task of identifying her son’s body at a city medical examiner’s office.

“My heart is broken,” she wrote to The Post. “I am broken.”

Police sources have said Victor Hernandez had “previous interactions” with the NYPD, including a pair of 2019 domestic violence busts, but his mom insisted he was a harmless family man.

“He was a hard working [sic] great father of two children,” she wrote. “Who worked hard full time and did side jobs to raise his children and went to Lehman college after work.

“He paid his taxes and was a good citizen.”

The mom couldn’t offer any insight into what prompted her son’s apparent break early Wednesday.

“He [sic] only run in with the police were domestic no drugs or gun charges,” she wrote. “No mental history. He was a good man and the world is a darker place without his bright light.”

His father, Tomas Hernandez, added via text of his son, “I would rather have him in jail fighting a case than dead.”

NYPD officials said in a Thursday-afternoon press briefing that the incident would be probed, as is standard for police-involved shootings.

“Like all our officer-involved shootings, there will be an independent investigation,” said Kevin Maloney, deputy chief of the Force Investigation Division. “In this case, it will be conducted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.”

Additional reporting by Tina Moore and Aaron Feis