EAST LIVERPOOL — Christopher Stevens, 36, 238 Moore St., was arrested and charged with obstruction of official business, aggravated menacing, inducing panic, aggravated arson and arson following an incident early Tuesday morning at 665 Walnut St.

According to Police Chief John Lane, officers had initially responded to the residence at 665 Walnut St., for a domestic situation where Stevens had been arguing with his girlfriend and he told her he was going to burn the place down. After the girlfriend left the residence, she saw smoke inside the residence and police were called back.

According to the police report, when officers arrived at the residence on Tuesday morning at 6:51 a.m., they quickly walked to the back door of the apartment to get in as they could smell smoke coming from the apartment.

A male who officers later identified as Gregory Fullerton, the owner of the property, kicked the back door in and at taser point was given the command by an officer to not enter the building and move out of the way to which Fullerton complied.

Once inside the apartment, the officers smelled a heavy smoke odor and were able to see smoke coming from underneath a door and smelled. The officers heard a man later identified as Stevens inside the apartment and gave him multiple commands to open the door and come out with his hands on his head.

Officers noted that Stevens was acting in an erratic manner and refused to come out. Stevens answered “no” when asked by the officers if he had any weapons in the residence.

Officers made multiple attempts to get Stevens to surrender, he refused multiple times telling the officers that he did not want to live anymore and they were going to have to kill him to get him out of the apartment. Officers noted they could hear Stevens shuffling around against the door, barricading himself inside.

Officer Flisha Kelsey told Stevens “that his safety was a priority and no one needed to get hurt and that he just needed to comply, follow orders and come out with his hands on his head.”

Stevens continued to ignore all orders by officers on the scene and shut the windows in the upstairs apartment to avoid contact with the police.

Capt. John Headley gave Stevens a final warning that if he did not come out of the apartment with his hands on his head, the pepper ball gun would be deployed into the apartment.

Stevens still failed to comply with police orders and after waiting for several minutes, Headley fired several shots with the pepper ball gun. Stevens surrendered after that and opened the back door to the apartment and came out with his hands on his head.

As he started walking down the stairs toward the officers, he put his hands in his pockets even though he was given a command to stop reaching and keep his hands on his head.

Stevens refused to listen and according to police reports was taken down by Detective Jon Price and Kelsey was able to take him into custody.

Patrolman Hunter Maze did an incident search to make sure Stevens had no weapons on him during the arrest.

According to the police report, after being escorted to and placed into the back seat of a cruiser, Stevens began to bash his head off the window which resulted in a laceration on his forehead. Stevens was then moved from the cruiser to an East Liverpool ambulance and was transported to East Liverpool City Hospital with Kelsey riding along as a police escort inside the ambulance.

After Stevens was medically cleared, he was transported to the Columbiana County Jail.

Lane noted that the smoke was due to Stevens attempting to light a mattress on fire, but the fire burned itself out. The East Liverpool Fire Department was on the scene and not needed for the fire but was needed to transport Stevens to the hospital for a self-inflicted injury.