A young Hoboken man out holiday shopping with his wife at a high-end New Jersey mall was executed by two carjackers as he tried to protect his terrified spouse, authorities said Monday.
Dustin Friedland, 30, and Jamie Schare Friedland, 27, both lawyers, had their arms full of packages and were headed back to their 2012 Range Rover in the parking garage near Nordstrom at The Mall at Short Hills when they were accosted at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, cops said.
The couple was toting so many bags, they looked as if “they were trying to get all their Christmas shopping done in one night,” a source at the mall recalled.
Friedland had opened the SUV door for his wife and was heading around to the driver’s side when the thugs — who had circled the garage at least twice trolling for victims — made their move.
Friedland confronted one of the men, who put a gun to his head and demanded his keys, law-enforcement sources said.
“He would never have done anything stupid, like grab for a gun — but I know he would not have hesitated to protect Jamie,’’ her uncle, Dr. Mark Schare, told The Post on Monday.
“He couldn’t do enough for her.’’
After Friedland pushed the thug off him, the thug fired multiple shots from a handgun. A single bullet struck Friedland point-blank in the head as witnesses heard Jaime shrieking.
One of the men hopped behind the wheel of the luxury SUV and ordered her out at gunpoint, law-enforcement sources told The Post. He sped off, followed by his cohort in a Subaru SUV, which they had driven to the mall.
Hordes of holiday shoppers had been unaware of the horror until cops arrived and ordered a lockdown of the Milburn, NJ, mall, which boasts such ritzy retailers as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Chanel, Gucci, Armani and Hermès.
Meanwhile, the carjackers sped east toward Newark on Route 24.
Cops found the Range Rover — with its rear window shattered — behind an abandoned building on Renner Avenue, several blocks south of Interstate 78 in Newark, on Monday morning.
The suspects were still at large last Monday night.
A devastated Jamie Friedland spent hours in vain scouring mug shots, a source said.
“It’s just so senseless,” said Schare, a retired OB-GYN in Michigan whose brother is Jamie’s father.
The young couple had just moved into their $625,000 Hoboken home in October and had planned to start a family, colleagues and relatives said.
“They were starting a life together,” Schare said. “They bought a house. They were making plans for a family and a future.”
He lashed out at the killers.
“I want them dead,” he said.
“In a heartbeat, I would like to see them dead because of what they did. And for what? What did they gain?”
“It’s just evil. They should not have a day of peace, ever again.”
A funeral for Friedland was planned for Wednesday.
Dustin and Jamie had met in law school at Syracuse University and married in her native Michigan in 2011.
He grew up in New Jersey and was an Eagle Scout, competitive swimmer and rower known for his kindness and easy manner.
He worked as a patent lawyer for a New Jersey firm before going to work in May 2012 analyzing construction-related legal claims for his dad’s company, Epic Mechanical Inc., in Neptune, NJ.
His wife works in landlord-tenant law for the Manhattan firm Adam Leitman Bailey.
“Dustin was just a wonderful human being. He couldn’t be more caring. No one had a bigger heart,” the firm’s owner, Adam Leitman Bailey, told The Post.
He recalled that the couple had just attended a party at the company’s offices last week.
“My whole firm is just crying right now. We’re just in despair,” Bailey said.
Jamie’s uncle recalled how Friedland fit right in with their close-knit family.
“The first time I met him, he kept calling Jamie ‘Babe,’ ” Schare recalled with a chuckle.
“And I thought, ‘What is that? Who is this guy calling her that?’ But it turned out that it was an indication of how much she meant to him. It was sincere.
“He was a genuinely warm, good, decent guy. After I realized that, I got over the ‘Babe.’ He was very polite, very respectful.”
Schare said he last saw the couple when they came to Michigan for Thanksgiving.
In Hoboken, candles and notes piled up outside the couple’s Park Avenue home.
One neighbor, Anna Stanin, 38, said she and Friedland would chat whenever he’d pass by and see her working in her garage on her baby-stroller-cleaning business.
“He was intrigued by my business [and] wanted to give advice to me about how to grow [it],” she said. “He was a nice gentleman . . . He was just supportive. He had lots of great ideas and gave me ideas on how to promote myself and brand myself.”
While Friedland’s family and friends were reeling, it was business as usual at The Mall at Short Hills Monday.
Many store employees said they had been unaware there had even been a shooting until they came into work.
By midday, shoppers waited in lines for parking spaces, and stores were packed.
Christmas music blared over the loudspeakers, and kids lined up to visit Santa Claus.
Mall management declined to comment about security issues or on whether it had added more guards, saying only that safety is a “Number 1” priority.
Cops said the men who killed Friedland may be part of a auto-theft ring that has targeted the tristate area in recent months.
The shooting took place a month after a 20-year-old man opened fire in the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus.
Richard Shoop, wearing a black motorcycle helmet, walked through that mall, randomly firing shots into the air, before taking his own life on Nov. 4. No one else was hurt in that incident.
Violent crimes are rare at Short Hills, in an affluent area of Milburn, although there have been a few robberies reported by shoppers returning to their cars.
In 2009, a man with a knife robbed and attempted to kidnap and carjack a 56-year-old woman leaving the mall.
In 2006, two women were carjacked at gunpoint outside Joe’s American Bar & Grill on the lower level.
Additional reporting by Bob Fredericks, Frank Rosario, Laurel Babcock, Leonica Valentine and Ben Feuerherd.