The funeral for Newark Police Detective Joseph Azcona is set for Friday in Newark. A 14-year-old is facing murder charges in his death.

Community advocates say preventing crimes like this starts with supporting families in Newark.

"We need more people out here committed to the kids and we don't need a tragic situation like this to happen to wake everybody up and realize kids are moving around out here with weapons," said, Khalil Tutt, founder of the nonprofit New Direction 360.

Community leaders, including Mayor Ras Baraka, have said this is less about policing and more about supporting the youth growing up in Newark neighborhoods.

Tutt says it's about making sure young people don't feel the need to pick up a gun in the first place.

"It's not that little boy's fault. It's the system's fault, it's the community's fault," said Mariel Hufnagel, CFO for The HUBB, another nonprofit that focuses on the advancement of youth impacted by trauma. "It's devastating, it's heartbreaking... On both sides.”

Organizations like The HUBB and New Direction work with the City of Newark to find kids and teenagers to connect them with any services they might need.

"We can feed them, we have psychologists in here, we have different services that we can provide for them and their whole family," said Tutt.

But they say funding is a major issue.

"We need money for community organizations and high-risk interventionists that are on the street in the community," said Hufnagel.

"We want to keep fighting and use this situation to build us up and make us stronger together as a community and protect each other more and I pray that can come out of this more than us just pointing fingers at each other," said Tutt.

The funeral for Azcona will be held this Friday at 10:30 a.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark.