PARAMUS, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — Two 16-year-old boys were arrested Tuesday and accused of trying to carjack a woman at the Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, N.J.
Around 12:50 p.m. Tuesday, Paramus police received a 911 call from a 34-year-old Ridgefield Park woman, who said she had just returned to her care in the south parking lot at the mall after shopping at Best Buy.
The woman told police she was sitting in her car with the doors unlocked, when two boys came up, opened the doors, and tried to pull her out, police said. One of the suspects took the keys from her hand, police said.
The suspects then ran off east through the parking lot toward a residential neighborhood, police said.
Paramus Officer Kurt Massey was on Plaza Way responding to the incident when he saw two boys running by, police said. The boys separated and fled into backyards on Fairfield Drive, police said.
Massey arrested one of the boys in the backyard of a home on Fairfield Drive, along with two other officers – Todd Colaianni and Jonathan Henderson, police said. The officers set up a perimeter along with police from two neighboring municipalities, and eventually found the other suspect in a backyard on Cloverdale Road.
The victim declined medical attention. The boys were charged as juveniles with carjacking and resisting arrest, and were being held late Tuesday at the Bergen County Juvenile Detention Center in Teterboro.
About 30 miles away at another New Jersey mall, a man lost his life to a carjacking in a parking garage.
Dustin Friedland was shot and killed in the parking lot of the mall on Dec. 15 of last year. Friedlands and his wife, Jamie, were leaving the upscale shopping center when they were confronted by two armed men as they were getting into their 2012 Range Rover on the third-floor parking deck, prosecutors said.
Jamie was unharmed, but Dustin was shot in the head and later died at an area hospital.
Four suspects have been charged in the Short Hills case charged with murder, felony murder, carjacking, conspiracy, possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose. They all pleaded not guilty.
Jamie Friedland also filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the case, accusing the mall operators and security contractors of failing to keep the mall secure.
Meanwhile, the Garden State Plaza Mall was also the subject of a horror last November, when
Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck walked through the mall with a rifle that had been modified to look like an AK-47, randomly firing shots before turning the gun on himself.
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Tagged: 16-Year-Old Boys, Attempted Carjacking, Carjacking, Garden State Plaza Mall, Paramus, Paramus Police, Ridgefield Park 
