Two 18-year-old Queens residents were responsible for the cross-community havoc caused in both Marine Park and Canarsie last week, officials alleged.
Police alleged that Lashawn Boyer and Shamiya Brown were responsible for the carjacking that led to a police chase into Canarsie, where the two and an unapprehended other man sparked a hostage drama in a home on East 99th Street.
Boyer and Brown were accused of a slew of crimes, as well as failing to have some common sense, when they and their friend allegedly decided to steal a bright red BMW from the Toys R Us parking lot at 2875 Flatbush Avenue, just north of the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge.
According to the complaint filed by the Kings County District Attorney’s office, two of the three suspects were masked when they allegedly pulled guns and demanded that the BMW’s owner give up his vehicle at 1:30 p.m. on August 5.
When the motorist reported the car-jacking, word had spread about the bright red BMW and the three men who took it.
It was only a matter of time – just a half hour, according to officials – that a police officer would spot the stolen car.
That’s just what transpired at the corner of Flatlands Avenue and Rockaway Parkway when cops from Public Service Area 1 saw the vehicle and tried to pull the three suspects over.
Police alleged that the suspects did what they were told, but quickly bolted from the car and ran off.
The thieves allegedly led police on a foot pursuit through several back yards, leaping over gates and vaulting over fences as they fled, until they were seen breaking a window to a home on East 99th Street near Avenue J.
Prosecutors said that they allegedly entered the home, surprising resident 75-year-old Dieadonne Aguste.
The hardened thug exterior was already beginning to crack when they allegedly told Aguste that they were being chased by the police and “needed a place to hide.”
“They said, ‘We’re not going to hit you, just tell us where to go,” Aguste told reporters.
The suspects didn’t pull any weapons as they went up the stairs, trying to find a rooftop exit.
Aguste said that he let the suspects in because he knew the cops were already looking for them.
In a matter of minutes, NYPD Emergency Services Unit officers showed up to demand their surrender.
Boyer and Brown gave up after a brief standoff. The third suspect managed to escape during the chase, officials said.
Both men were charged with robbery, menacing, petit larceny, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, resisting arrest, criminal trespass and burglary.
The two were not charged with weapons possession, meaning that the gun they used in the car jacking was either fake or they had simply “pretended to be armed.”
Boyer, who lives on 147th Avenue in Queens, was arraigned on $75,000 bail, officials said.
Brown, a resident of 107th Avenue, was arraigned on $100,000, said police.
The third suspect was still being sought as this paper went to press.
