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It was late morning when a concerned citizen called to report four young occupants abandoning a stolen Mercedes Benz S550 sedan that blew a tire on Route 208.
All four vanished into the neighborhood between Cedar Hill and Grandview avenues, the caller said.
Instead of splitting up, though, they stuck together.
A wave of police from Wyckoff, Midland Park and Hawthorne instantly converged on the area. Wyckoff Police Chief David Murphy was among them.
Moments later, Officer James Bakelaar spotted the suspects at the corner of New York Avenue and Robertson Drive, Lt. Joseph Soto said.
All four were seized after police learned that the disabled Mercedes had been reported stolen out of Rutherford earlier that Wednesday, April 6, the lieutenant said.
North Jersey has been plagued by an unprecedented number of vehicle thefts in the wake of a state attorney general's order that prevents police from pursuing the thieves in all but the rarest of cases.
Add in bail reform and you have increasingly brazen bandits from out of town who prowl suburban streets, snatching any car, SUV or even minivan that's left unlocked with the key fobs still inside.
Nothing prevents police from chasing them on foot, though.
Arrested in the Wyckoff were Keath L. Jackson, 22, Ali T. Hall, 19, Nazir Coursey, 20 and a 16-year-old boy. All are from Newark.
The adults were charged criminally with receiving stolen property, as well as criminal mischief for damaging a fence separating the highway from the residential area, Soto said.
Hall and Coursey were sent to the Bergen County Jail to await first appearances in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack. Jackson was released with a summons.
The juvenile was also released after being served with a delinquency complaint that will be heard in the Family Part of Superior Court in Hackensack.
Responding along with Murphy, Soto and Bakelaar were Wyckoff Police Lt. Kevin Kasak, Detective Sgt. Michael Ragucci and Officers William Christopher, Kaitlyn Maglione and Joseph Benanti, the lieutenant said.
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