CINCINNATI — A Westwood man’s Sunday night attack on his girlfriend and landlord escalated into an hourslong SWAT standoff, a quartet of criminal charges and a fire that consumed his apartment building, displacing more than a dozen other tenants.
“Police did everything they could,” landlord Gary Teetor, who doesn’t know if his building can be salvaged, said Monday. “It’s just a shame this happened.”
Teetor had been restoring one of the downstairs apartments when 44-year-old Nathaniel Bickel’s girlfriend sprinted down the stairs in a panic, he said. Bickel followed her.
According to Teetor’s recollection and a pair of victim statements filed in Hamilton County court, Bickel began to choke her and spray her with Mace.
He turned the Mace on Teetor when he tried to intervene, fellow resident Glenn Kuhlman said. The altercation between the men became a physical scuffle — Bickel bit Teetor, hit him with a mop handle, ran back to his own apartment and locked the door.
Kuhlman said he could hear Bickel stacking objects behind the door as soon as police arrived. Initial negotiations with SWAT officers fizzled.
Near the end of the standoff, police threw a flash-bang grenade that produced a boom loud enough to reverberate throughout the building. Kuhlman said he believed that started the fire that gutted the third floor and rendered the other two uninhabitable with smoke and water damage.
If it did, Teetor said he didn’t blame the officers.
“I respect the police,” he said. “Safety is number one. They were just trying to do their job, and this is what happens.”
Bickel was arrested trying to flee the scene. He was charged with domestic violence, inducing panic and threatening violence, and two misdemeanor counts of assault.
He’ll face the consequences of the altercation Tuesday morning in court.
One-time neighbors such were living with them already Monday night. Although the Red Cross gave Kuhlman’s family enough money to rent a hotel room, he said he wasn’t sure where he would go once it ran out.
“It’s me, my mom, my niece,” he said. “My niece has a little boy, Mario. He’s two years old. There’s a baby involved. It’s a lot of stress without a doubt.
“One man’s reaction took place, and it hurt a lot of people. Without him knowing it, he affected everyone in the building.”
