D.C. teacher kidnapped, forced to get money from bank

A teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in the District told authorities that she was abducted over the weekend by a Wilson student and forced to withdraw money from her bank account, sources said.

In a startling incident with little if any precedent in the Washington area, the teacher, who had been forced into her own car, eventually managed to escape from the student and a second abductor.

A juvenile was later taken into custody. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, the teacher said she believes it was a chance encounter and that she was not targeted.

The teacher suffered minor injuries. Neither the teacher nor the student was identified by name.

Asked about the incident in an e-mail, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee declined to comment and directed inquiries to the D.C. police, as did Wilson's principal.

The abduction occurred early Saturday in the Adams Morgan area of Northwest Washington, and the woman escaped about an hour later and about 15 miles away in the Wheaton/Aspen Hill area of Montgomery County, according to accounts provided by Montgomery and D.C. police. Police declined to give the victim's occupation.

However, police in both jurisdictions provided accounts of the alleged abduction. A D.C. police spokeswoman said a woman was abducted about 3:45 a.m. Saturday from near Columbia and Quarry roads NW, in the Adams Morgan area. The intersection is between Harvard Street and Ontario Road NW. The woman apparently holds a part-time job in that area, one source said.

The abduction victim was forced into her own vehicle and, according to D.C. police spokeswoman Gwen Crump, was taken to Montgomery.

There, "other crimes occurred which are being investigated" by the county police, Crump said Monday. Under the D.C. police policy of protecting crime victims and potential witnesses, she said, she could not give the woman's age or address.

Montgomery police released a statement Monday describing an incident that they said began when a woman, 30, was approached Saturday by two people in the Adams Morgan area.

"They forced her into her vehicle and told her to drive to an area bank," the county police said.

The woman, according to county police, "withdrew an undisclosed amount of money."