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Snow hadn’t begun falling yet when officers converged on Liberty Street near Wayne Avenue following a robbery around 11 a.m. Sunday, Police Director Jerry Speziale said.
Moments earlier, the robbers pistol-whipped a victim, taking his wallet and cellphone, Speziale said.
They were all wearing black, including their face masks.
The circumstances were similar to a trio of street holdups that occurred early Friday between 6 a.m. or so and shortly before 7:30, Speziale said.
City police on Sunday saturated and locked down the area, then stopped the crew’s vehicle and arrested all three without incident, the director said.
Before detectives were finished, Alexander Sami, 20, of Paterson and Jimmy German, 19, of Garfield were charged with four counts of armed robbery and weapons possession. Delinquency complaints for the same crimes were filed against a 17-year-old city boy.
The victims in all four holdups were men who ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s.
In the first robbery, the victim was pistol-whipped on 21st Avenue and told “gimme everything you got” before the robbers made off with his wallet, keys and cellphone, Speziale said.
The second victim was mugged about a half hour later at the corner of 6th Avenue and East 19th Street. He, too, was hit with what turned out to be an imitation handgun before surrendering his wallet and cellphone.
A little more than a half hour after that, a third victim was similarly mugged on East 28th Street, losing his wallet and cellphone to the robbers.
Then came the trio’s final robbery Sunday morning.
Capturing all three suspects were:
- Officer Mark Alvarez;
- Officer Kevin Brito;
- Officer Maxwell Francisco;
- Officer Justin Kimble;
- Officer Octavio Mora;
- Officer Selba Perez;
- Officer Joseph Tuminelli.
Detectives Sgt. Kelvin Matos and Detectives Marcos Martinez and Charlie Vidal interviewed the suspects and filed charges after getting confessions from all of them.
Sami and German were sent to the Passaic County Jail in Paterson to await first appearances in Central Judicial Court in Paterson. It wasn’t clear whether the boy was sent to a detention center or released to an adult.
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