AUBURN — City police have arrested a 22-year-old transient from Peru and a 17-year-old boy from Auburn in a purse-snatching that occurred at the Auburn Mall parking lot Sunday.

Police said Mark Sinclair and the unidentified teen were riding around in a vehicle stolen from Lewiston when Sinclair jumped from the vehicle and knocked a 16-year-old Canton girl to the ground and took her purse. The vehicle was later recovered in Lewiston by police.

Lili-Anne Tyler and her mother, Jillette Tyler, were leaving the mall around 5 p.m. when a masked robber approached them as they were walking to their car, the teen said this week.

She said her mother was “letting me drive and as I went ahead of her to get in the car the man jumped out of his car. I saw the vehicle pull up slowly and didn’t think anything of it. I thought he was just letting us move out of the way.”

Lili-Anne said, “As he jumped out of his car, he ran up to me yelling, ‘Give me your purse.’ I dropped my other bags, holding on to my purse as long as I could,” she told the Sun Journal.

The man pushed the teen to the ground, and then pushed her mother out of the way, and the teen finally let go of her purse, she said.

“Everything happened so fast you almost just don’t know what to do,” she said.

She remembered seeing her attacker holding something black in his left hand, but she couldn’t describe it, she said. She suffered a large scrape on her knee when she was forced to the pavement during the attack.

On Wednesday, Lewiston police stopped a vehicle and, after determining the vehicle was stolen, noticed the people inside matched the descriptions from the Auburn Mall incident, according to a written statement issued by Auburn Deputy Chief Jason Moen.

Auburn Detective Eric Bell responded to the traffic stop.

“I felt a sudden relief,” Tyler said Thursday after learning of the arrest. “I’m so grateful that they got the guys who did this. The Auburn Police were able to find my purse, which I’m so thankful for.”

Sinclair was charged with one felony count of robbery and a felony count of violation of conditions of release. He had been out on bail on a previous theft charge.

The 17-year-old was charged with felony criminal conspiracy to commit robbery.

Sinclair has a violent criminal history in the Peru area, according to state records. In 2014, he was charged with assaulting and terrorizing a woman in Mexico, leaving her with severe facial injuries. He was convicted of assault and the terrorizing charge was dismissed.

Sinclair is being held without bail at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn. The juvenile is being held at the Long Creek Juvenile Detention Center in South Portland pending a court appearance this week.

On Thursday, Tyler said she would take a lesson from the ordeal.

“This whole situation is eye-opening,” she said, “and made me more aware of my surroundings.”