Houston County man caught up in Oregon standoff 'more dissident than activist'

Jason Scott Patrick went from running a small roofing business out of his home in the middle of Georgia to become a figure of note in a standoff with federal authorities in Oregon.

How the 43-year-old who originally hails from the Seattle area came to align himself with a group of armed occupiers hunkered down in the wilderness isn't entirely clear.

But Patrick, who surrendered there and was arrested Wednesday, has earned acclaim here in recent years as a Good Samaritan.

He has also met with his share of conflict.

Last summer, after an apparent run-in with an off-duty Houston County sheriff's deputy at Rigby's Entertainment Complex in Warner Robins, Patrick sued the deputy, two other deputies and the sheriff.

According to Patrick's lawsuit, in which he makes personal-injury claims, he was supposedly talking to the off-duty deputy at Rigby's when "the conversation turned political," the lawsuit states. "The conversation irritated (the deputy)."

Patrick claims that he drove away and that the deputy, "in his abuse of authority," violated Patrick's rights and called another deputy to pull over Patrick.

It wasn't clear if he was arrested then, but records show that Patrick was jailed in Houston County in April 2011 for allegedly violating the state's seat belt law and driving with a suspended license.

Two years after that, in June 2013, property records show that the 1,400-square-foot house he bought on Clover Trail in Bonaire in 2003 went into foreclosure and was sold at auction.

The following January, Patrick was hailed a hero for venturing out to help stranded motorists during a snowstorm that paralyzed Atlanta.

Those he encountered on his around-the-clock, one-man rescue runs included a guy who couldn't get home to take his blood-pressure medicine and a woman who was eight months pregnant and stuck on an icy, traffic-clogged highway.

Larry O'Neal, a state representative at the time, had invited Patrick to the Capitol on what turned out to be the eve of the storm.

O'Neal recalled later seeing news of Patrick's good deeds, which earned Patrick accolades as a Red Cross Hometown Hero. O'Neal also remembered Patrick's surly side when it came to matters of governance.

"I would probably describe him more as a dissident than an activist," O'Neal said Thursday.

The former lawmaker hadn't known that Patrick was one of the people involved in the Oregon standoff.

But when a reporter told O'Neal about Patrick's arrest out west, the former legislator remembered Patrick from a town hall gathering Patrick attended a couple of years ago. Patrick, he said, was "basically criticizing everything."

Patrick, he went on, "really was kind of challenging my integrity when I was in office. ... He was very leery of anybody in government. ... He wasn't angry, but he was just drilled in. His mind was already made up that everybody in politics was corrupt, they were no good."

O'Neal said it seemed Patrick "hated any kind of politician or politics."

So O'Neal, in early 2014, invited Patrick to spend some time at the statehouse. "I told him, 'Just come see for yourself. Everything we do is open.'"

Patrick took him up on the offer, and O'Neal gave Patrick a pass to sit and watch proceedings. Then the winter storm that crippled the city came, and Patrick made news by helping stranded motorists.

"My staff in Atlanta showed him around" the Capitol, O'Neal said. "Then the snow came and he went on his merry way."

The following summer, in August 2014, Patrick allegedly went into the Warner Robins Municipal Court office on North Houston Road and threatened to "kill everyone" inside, court records state.

Late last month, a few weeks before he apparently took up with the occupiers in Oregon, a Houston County grand jury indicted him on charges related to the courthouse outburst: one count of making terroristic threats and another of obstructing a peace officer.

Documents don't say why Patrick might have been at the court, which sits on the back side of the old Houston Mall.

But records do note that Patrick refused Warner Robins police officer Brad Broadwell's repeated commands to leave, "physically resisting arrest."

An incident report added that trouble began at a security checkpoint where police officers were screening people as they entered the city court.

In his mugshot, the brown-eyed, salt-and-pepper bearded Patrick flashed a playful grin.

Soon after that August arrest, he made bail.

A judge's order noted two special conditions of his bond: no alcohol and no guns.

Telegraph writer Becky Purser and The Associated Press contributed to this report. To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 6:39 PM with the headline "Houston County man caught up in Oregon standoff 'more dissident than activist' ."