BY LAUREN MATTHEW
Staff Writer
OLD BRIDGE — A Lakewood man was arrested last week after using a fake gun to attempt a carjacking at a popular Route 516 shopping center, police said.
Patrick Carlos, 43, is said to have held the toy gun to a local woman’s side while attempting to take her car. The woman screamed and did not budge, causing a witness to thwart the attempt by calling the police.
Old Bridge Police Officer Patrick D’Onofrio responded to the call just after noon on June 14 about a bald white male with a handgun outside the Browntown Shopping Center.
When he arrived at the parking lot, D’Onofrio saw a man, later identified as Carlos, reaching into a silver sport-utility vehicle, according to his police report. A 48-year-old township woman was screaming for help, and the man appeared to be trying to pull her out of the vehicle.
D’Onofrio, the report said, pulled his gun, as he could see a gun in Carlos’ back pocket, and ordered him to the ground, where Carlos was then handcuffed.
He soon found that the black gun was plastic. Another fake gun was found in a front pocket, along with a small bag of marijuana, police said.
“It’s an imitation gun. It’s a [fake] gun made to look like a gun,” Lt. Robert Weiss said.
Carlos also had a bottle of vodka in his back pocket, police said.
The woman reportedly told D’Onofrio and other responding officers that as she was getting into her car, Carlos approached her with a gun, pushing it into her side. He told her to move over in the car or he would kill her, according to the report.
Carlos reportedly told her he was going to take her car.
When the woman did not move, Carlos told her again that he was going to kill her. She screamed for help and tried to honk the horn of her vehicle, but Carlos reportedly grabbed her hands to stop her.
Weiss described the victim as “a pretty tough lady” for holding her ground.
A 21-year-old Jersey City man saw what was happening and called the police.
Carlos was charged with kidnapping, carjacking, making terroristic threats, two counts of possession of an imitation firearm and two counts of possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose.
He was also issued a summons for possession of under 50 grams of marijuana.
“From our perspective, we caught a bad guy,” Weiss said. “Fortunately, no one was hurt.”
But, he added, the alleged events were serious. The fake gun was used the way a real gun would be used, Weiss noted.
“A robbery with an imitation gun is no different than a robbery with a real gun,” he said.
Carlos was taken to the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center, North Brunswick, and Weiss said he would most likely be released on bail.