Boy, 8, 'Is A Bad Child And They Were Only Disciplining Him': Parents To Joliet Police

JOLIET, IL —Will County Judge John Pavich determined that 44-year-old Dwight Patrick, who is accused of abusing an 8-year-old boy, should be released from the Will County Jail under the SAFE-T-Act, despite efforts by the Will County State's Attorney's Office to keep the Joliet man in the Will County Jail. He's been in jail four different times since 2018.

This week, prosecutors charged Patrick with aggravated battery and domestic battery. He comes from the 2300 block of Webster Avenue, which is in the Marycrest area.

According to the prosecution's filing, Joliet Police Officer Bianca Sanchez was responding to a neighborhood call involving a vicious dog when she spotted the 8-year-old boy out of the corner of her eye "in only underwear fall to the ground. Officer Sanchez looked, and the child was wearing only underwear on all fours, sitting on the grass. At that time, Officer Sanchez saw .... (Dwight Patrick) walked up to the child and kicked him hard in the buttocks area."

Court records indicate Joliet police have made multiple calls for service, including domestic batteries and welfare checks at the Patrick residence. At the scene, records say, a woman told Patrick, "the cops are here," and Patrick kept telling the officers the 8-year-old child was being bad.

The boy told the officers that his body was hurting, and the female officer saw a fresh scrape on the right side of the child's back and a lot of old scars all over his body, court files show.

"(The woman) and Patrick kept saying ... (the victim) is a bad child and they were only disciplining him," prosecutors informed the judge. "They said (the child) is destructive, a liar and ... abuses the parents. The parents said that they had to hide the knives in the household."

Joliet police noted the inside of the home showed a clogged kitchen sink, oil sitting in kitchen pans on the stove and an entire wooden board was nailed into the walls barricading the back door so it cannot be opened. All the beds were in the living room with a small fan plugged in aiming at the beds, according to court documents.

"Within the house, we observed a lot of holes in the walls, broken doors and holes in the ceiling," prosecutors relayed. "The parents blamed (the child) for a broken window and broken cell phones."

The Joliet Fire Department took the child to the hospital to check on his injuries and while at the hospital, the child "made a statement to the doctors and nurses that his mother also hits him. At this time, (the child) was taken into protective custody ... and remained for treatment in the hospital," court files pointed out.

According to prosecutors, Patrick's criminal history, all from Will County, included resisting a police officer in 2021, assault in 2018, criminal damage to property in 2008, domestic battery in 2004, domestic battery in 2022, domestic battery in 2021, criminal trespass at Sideline Sports Bar in 2020 and criminal trespass to vehicles in 2021 and assault in 2018.

Will County Judge John Pavich opted to order Patrick's release from the Will County Jail rather than keep the Joliet man detained under the SAFE-T-Act as State's Attorney Jim Glasgow's prosecutors had sought.

After three days in the jail, Patrick emerged a free man around supper time on Monday, his latest jail logs reflect. Judge Pavich's ruling included electronic monitoring for Patrick as a condition of the pretrial release program "until further order of court."