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Red Shoes Could Tie Pair To Lyndhurst, Clifton Gas Station Robberies

ROCHELLE PARK, N.J. -- A pair of red sneakers may be the link between two men arrested for an armed robbery in Newark and a pair of gunpoint gas station holdups in Lyndhurst and Clifton, authorities said Friday.

It's the shoes.

It's the shoes.

Photo Credit: LEFT: Courtesy ROCHELLE PARK PD / RIGHT: Courtesy LYNDHURST PD

Lyndhurst detectives were in Newark interviewing the suspects Friday afternoon, Police Chief Jim O'Connor told Daily Voice.

No charges had been filed, he emphasized.

It all began just before 11 p.m. Wednesday, when a clerk at the Ramada Inn on West Passaic Street in Rochelle Park who was away from the front desk spotted two men in ski masks walk in (surveillance photo, above left).

After passing the unoccupied front desk, the pair "waited near the elevator lobby, peeked around the counter, and walked outside," Rochelle Park Lt. Dean Pinto said.

"As they did so, the clerk observed the butt of a handgun in the pocket of one of [them]," Pinto said.

One of them returned a short time later pretending to be a customer, the lieutenant said.

He was wearing red sneakers.

After a time, the man in the red shoes got frustrated and ran out, Pinto said.

Two hours later, two robbers armed with handguns took about $1,000 in cash and several packs of cigarettes from a Lyndhurst service station (surveillance photo, above right).

Two men with similar descriptions also held up a Jersey Gas station on Crooks Avenue in Clifton, authorities said.

Around 12:30 a.m. Friday, Newark police arrested two suspects on armed robbery charges.

One of them was wearing red sneakers, Pinto said.

A 9mm semi-automatic handgun was recovered, he said.

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