Banks, Beaverton, Crime

Man charged with kidnapping two Banks women

A Washington County Sheriff’s Office deputy. Photo: WCSO

WASHINGTON COUNTY – Two Banks women reportedly are safe after being kidnapped on Wednesday, January 29 at about 12:30 a.m. by a man they reportedly knew who offered them a ride home from an off-campus party of mainly Portland State University students.

Brian van Kleef, deputy and public information officer for the Washington County Sheriffs Office, said the alleged kidnapper 20-year-old Edgar Adrian Hernandez of Cornelius, told the women once seated in his car that he would not be taking them home to Banks, but rather somewhere else.

Soon after, police reports say Washington County sheriffs witnessed Hernandez driving a 2012 Dodge Charger as fast as “100-miles-per-hour” on westbound Highway 26. 

Hernandez eventually exited Highway 26 at the Highway 217 interchange in Beaverton near the Canyon Road exit onto SW Park Way. He ran a red light and almost crashed into a Washington County Sheriffs’ deputy’s car near SW Baltic Avenue.

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Two deputies attempted to stop the car but Hernandez sped on, eventually crossing back to the north side of Highway 26, heading northeast and crashing at the intersection of SW Barnes Road and SW 118th Avenue. Police searched for Hernandez, including a K-9 unit, but he could not be located. The women were not injured, according to police reports.

However, deputies did find a handgun under his driver’s seat while conducting a search of the getaway car.

Then, in what subjectively almost seems like a scene from the long-running television show “Cops,” van Kleef described how sheriffs soon arrested Hernandez.

“The same deputy he almost rammed into during his (high-speed chase) ended up pulling him over (two nights later) for driving at nighttime with his headlights off,” the deputy said.

Van Kleef revealed during an information request from the Banks Post that Edgar Adrian Hernandez has prior charges in Washington County, including an arrest of Oct. 7, 2018, on a domestic violence charge and second-degree criminal mischief stemming from the same incident; a March 31, 2019 charge for two failures to appear “in another county court” on a reckless driving charge. He also has a sealed juvenile record. 

Hernandez has been arraigned in Washington County Circuit Court in Hillsboro and his upcoming court date is Feb. 12 at 3 p.m.  

The women allegedly kidnapped have not come forward publicly with their names.

After being booked into the Washington County Jail on two separate charges of second-degree kidnapping, one charge of attempting to elude police with a vehicle, and one charge of a felon in possession of a firearm, Hernandez was released on February 12 on his own recognizance.

This story has been updated.

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