NJ Carjacking Victim Struggled With Suspects Before Fatal Shooting
Dec. 17, 2013, 10:45 a.m.
He had just closed the his wife's passenger side door and was approaching the driver's side.
Dustin and Jamie Friedland
Authorities are continuing to look for the suspects connected with Sunday night's fatal carjacking at the Mall at Short Hills in Short Hills, NJ. Apparently Dustin Friedland, a 30-year-old Hoboken resident, had struggled with the carjackers before they fired four times, hitting him once in the head.
Friedland and his wife, Jamie Schare Friedland, were heading back to their 2012 silver Range Rover in the mall's parking deck near Nordstrom's just after 9 p.m. A source tells the Post that they were "toting so many bags, they looked as if 'they were trying to get all their Christmas shopping done in one night.'" Friedland had shut the front passenger door for his wife and was heading to the driver's side door when the suspects approached him.
According to the Star-Ledger, "A struggle ensued, and several shots were fired, including the one that killed Friedland, the sources said. Investigators believe the shooter used a handgun, according to the sources. One of the attackers then entered the vehicle and ordered Friedland's wife out of the car at gunpoint, according to one source. The carjackers then sped away in two different cars, — Friedland's Range Rover, and the Subaru they drove to the mall in, the sources said."
Surveillance video shows the suspects entering the mall in a green SUV and circling the lot. A driver who was in the lot said the SUV left the parking lot "at about 100 miles per hour." Friedland died at Morristown Memorial Hospital at 11:45 p.m.
The Essex County Prosecutor's Office believes the killing was motivated by the expensive car, which is worth around $65,000-70,000. Regarding the possibility of a car theft ring, a spokesperson said, "We’re leaving all options open at this time." NJ State Police statistics from 2011 show that there were 379 carjackings, but only 13 were in a shopping mall/strip mall parking lot. Just hours after Friedland was shot, a South Orange a Land Rover owner was carjacked at gunpoint in front of his home.
The Range Rover was found behind an abandoned house in Newark, with a broken window. The Post says, "A devastated Jamie Friedland spent hours in vain scouring mug shots, a source said." The couple had just moved into a home in Hoboken in October; their friends say that they were planning on starting a family soon.
