07/05/15 Paramus, NJ – Carjacker Steals Woman’s Car – Chase – Suspect Steals Englewood Cliffs Patrol Car – High Speed Chase – Rams Multiple Police Cars – Injuries

July 5, 2015

northjersey.com

A carjacker led police on a wild chase through several Bergen County towns Sunday afternoon, starting with the theft of an automobile with two children inside in

Englewood Cliffs, involving the subsequent theft of a police patrol car and ending with a crash in the lot of an auto dealership on Route 4 in Paramus, authorities said.

Along the way, the thief, who was not immediately identified, rammed several police cars, but there were no serious injuries, Englewood Cliffs Mayor Joseph Parisi Jr. said.

Parisi said he had received an initial report from his town’s police department, but could not confirm all the details of the incident or the chase.

“All I know is it started with a carjacking, that two minors were in the car, and that at some point a police car was apprehended or stolen, that the chase ended in Paramus, and no one was seriously hurt,” Parisi said.

Paramus police referred all questions to Englewood Cliffs police, who declined to comment.

The circumstances of the original carjacking mentioned by the mayor were not clear, but according to reports based on police radio transmissions, by approximately 3:40 p.m., the suspect was driving a stolen police car, heading north on Route 9W toward Alpine.

Two minutes later, he was reported heading south on Route 9W in the patrol car, which was said to have heavy front-end damage from having rammed several other police cars.

The chase went through Tenafly, Dumont and Bergenfield before entering the westbound lanes of Route 4 shortly after 4 p.m., with the stolen car reported ramming several more pursuing police vehicles.

At one point, an ambulance was dispatched to the Montammy Country Club in Tenafly, in response to a report of a police officer injured in the chase, but details were not immediately available.

The pursuit came to an end when the stolen Englewood Cliffs police car came to rest against two new Jeeps on the lot of Paramus Chrysler Dodge Jeep at 315 Route 4 west.

Before the chase was over, two New Milford police cars that had joined the pursuit wound up crashed into each other and piled up against the concrete median barrier.

New Milford police said the two officers who had been driving the wrecked patrol cars were not seriously injured but were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center for evaluation of bruises and pain. It was not immediately clear whether the two cars had been rammed by the stolen Englewood Cliffs patrol car, or had collided with each other, police said.

Vehicles belonging to the Bergen County Police, the New Jersey State Police, and the River Edge and Paramus police joined the Englewood Cliffs police at the scene where the pursuit ended.

The suspect was apprehended after a short foot chase, according to reports based on radio transmissions.