Ogdensburg standoff ended by chat, cigarette

When Michael A. Patak looked around the yard behind the Nice N Easy convenience store on New York Avenue late Tuesday night and saw police surrounding him, he briefly considered "suicide by cop," he told Ogdensburg Police Chief Richard J. Polniak.

But Mr. Polniak says he quickly changed the topic of conversation to get the distraught 23-year-old thinking "more constructive thoughts."

The tense stand off began shortly after 8:41 p.m. when police received a report from a passerby who called police reporting that he had seen a man with a rifle standing outside the convenience store.

While police were responding to the scene, Mr. Patak's father, Scott A. Patak of 1 LaFayette St., called police, notifying them that he had received a call from a friend who had seen his son walking down the street carrying a rifle.

The elder Patak reported to police that his son, who was facing sentencing in Jefferson County on a guilty plea to attempted third-degree burglary, had been upset and distraught earlier that day.

As police officers began arriving at the convenience store they saw the younger Patak holding a rifle.

He shouted to the officers to go away and leave him alone, finally firing off a round of his .223 caliber rifle to force them to keep their distance.

Mr. Polniak was home when he received a call a little before 9 p.m. telling him that his officers "had a stand off at the Nice N Easy" with a man armed with a rifle.

"At first we thought it was a botched robbery. I was told there had been shots fired," Mr. Polniak said. "But when I got to the scene, while I was being briefed by the sergeant who had been talking to the father, it became obvious by his actions and what he was saying that he wanted to harm himself."

Mr. Polniak said he engaged the distraught man in a conversation.

"He told me 'I want a smoke,'" Chief Polniak recalled. "His father gave me a partial pack of smokes with a lighter."

Mr. Polniak gave him the cigarettes and lighter to help defuse the tense stand off.

During their conversation, the younger Mr. Patak said that he had charges pending against him in Jefferson County and that he had been having problems with his family earlier in the day.

Mr. Polniak said that Mr. Patak admitted that he had been having trouble with alcohol and substance abuse.

"I told him I would do what I could to help him," Mr. Polniak said. "I was trying to establish a trust between us."

At one point, Mr. Polniak said, the younger Mr. Patak told him "I'm sure if I pointed my rifle at you" it would prompt the surrounding officers to shoot him.

"He said he could commit 'suicide by cop,'" Mr. Polniak said. "I was able to end that idea and get his thoughts in the right direction."

When the lighter began to malfunction, Mr. Patak told the chief that he just wanted one more cigarette.

"Let me have this one last cigarette," Mr. Polniak recalls him saying.

"I told him that afterwards 'you and I will talk things out with your dad,'" the chief said.

The chief borrowed a lighter, he said. "I got right up to him to the point I lit the cigarette for him. ... He took a couple of puffs, and said 'here chief.'"

And he handed the rifle to the chief butt first, ending the stand off.

"He just gave himself up," Mr. Polniak said. "I handed him the handcuffs and he put them on himself."