Detectives rescue abducted man being held in Olney garage

The noises outside were so alarming - windows breaking, the sound of someone being dragged - that a neighbor on Cranston Street called 911 four times.

Those calls Sunday night would set investigators on the trail of a violent abduction that stretched across the city, from Southwest Philadelphia to Olney, and ended when detectives stormed a repair shop and rescued the bound and bloodied man being held there.

Another man fled the scene, but was in police custody Monday.

Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives said the abduction was drug-related - and that investigators believe that the kidnappers may have taken the wrong man. The intended target may have been the victim's brother, Walker said.

The victim, who works at a convenience store in Delaware County and had no previous contact with police, was parking his brother's car at his brother's apartment Sunday night when a black minivan pulled up behind him, Walker said.

Four men got out of the van, kicked out a window in the car being parked, and dragged him out of the vehicle, the victim later told police.

His attackers were wearing black tactical vests, Walker said, emblazoned with the word "Police" - apparently so the victim would think he was being arrested and not kidnapped.

The men later bound and gagged him, and drove him to a repair shop in Olney, Walker said.

As the night wore on, the victim's friends began to receive calls from the kidnappers, demanding a $10,000 ransom, according to a police report.

Within hours, investigators closed in.

About 3 a.m. Monday, detectives stormed a garage on the 700 block of Chew Avenue in Olney - where they found the victim bound, gagged, and beaten, but otherwise in stable condition. The man who ran from the garage was caught after a brief foot chase.

Search warrants executed at the brother's apartment turned up an unspecified amount of cash, Walker said, and a tactical vest that had apparently fallen to the street during the abduction.

In the Olney garage, police found a black minivan with bloodstains inside and a BB gun modeled after a real gun on the passenger seat. Also recovered were a Taser, more tactical vests, and two-way radios.

Police determined that the minivan had been reported stolen the day before, Walker said.