Fighter in custody after five-hour standoff in Warrenville

A 32-year-old Warrenville man barricaded himself in his home and set the stage for a five-hour standoff Friday that ended with SWAT teams deploying tear gas and subduing the man with a stun gun.

Nathan J. Patrick, who has experience as a mixed martial arts fighter and a military background, was taken into custody and charged with aggravated battery to a police officer and is being held on $500,000 bail.

Police say Patrick, of the 31800 block of Village Green Blvd. in Warrenville, drove a large screwdriver through his front door when police showed up to serve an order of protection at about 3 p.m. Friday. They say Patrick also threw an unidentified “causative substance” on one of the officers.

The ordeal finally came to a close at about 8 p.m., when police threw tear gas into the apartment and asked him repeatedly to surrender. When he continued to refuse, police said, they used the stun gun and took him into custody.

Police say Patrick appeared to have cuts on his face and head and was taken to Edward Hospital in Naperville for a medical evaluation.

It all started when Patrick refused the order of protection and “became highly agitated and started destroying the place,” Warrenville Police Deputy Chief John Naydenoff said.

Patrick was unarmed and alone in the apartment, police said, and he started piling interior doors and furniture at his front door and front window to remain barricaded.

SWAT teams were called in at about 4 p.m. and a negotiator tried to calm Patrick down.

Patrick, who lives in a second-floor unit, eventually began breaking windows and throwing items out of the building, police said. Police did not say who filed the order of protection.

Naydenoff said Patrick’s mother arrived to try to speak with him from a communications van outside the apartment, and she told police he is mentally ill and not taking his medications.

By 6 p.m., two officers were standing outside the apartment’s doorway, while three SWAT team members were stationed on the banks of a retention pond across the street. Another stood on the second-floor balcony of an adjacent building.

No police were injured in the standoff.

Neighbors in the complex, which includes apartments and condominiums and lies just southeast of the corner of Winfield and Warrenville roads, said the ordeal is unusual for their normally quiet neighborhood.

“You don’t see much going on around here,” said Rebecca Ortiz, who has lived about one block from the site of the standoff for four years. “Outside of the occasional party, for the most part, it’s quiet.”

Ortiz said her concern for her child with autism means she has to take special care when choosing a place to live.

“We wouldn’t have stayed for four years if we thought it was shady,” she said.