JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A SWAT standoff in St. Johns County shut down a portion of U.S. 1 for several hours before deputies arrested their suspect as he tried to escape the apartment in which he had barricaded himself, deputies said.

According to investigators, 55-year-old William Graham was holed up in his home on Saratoga Boulevard north of St. Augustine after deputies came Thursday afternoon to serve him with an arrest warrant for a violation of probation.

"It was scary. There were tons of police. I didn't know there were that many in the whole state," said Dorothy Mwangi, who owns the apartment building where the standoff took place.

Mwangi told Channel 4 not only does she know Graham, but she said she also has been his landlord for three years.

"I've never had any trouble. He's very quiet and keeps to himself," Mwangi said.

However, St. Johns County Sheriff's deputies said Graham barricaded himself inside of his apartment when they tried to serve him with a warrant.

Mwangi said she tried talking with Graham to get him to come out peacefully, but it didn’t work.

"I called him on the phone and said, 'William, listen. This is not a big deal. Come out and I'll come with you and get you out of jail and nothing will happen.' He said, 'No. If they come in after me, I'm going to shoot them,'" Mwangi said.

That was when the nearly four-hour standoff began.

SWAT teams surrounded the apartment building, U.S. Highway 1 between State Road 16 and Lewis Speedway was shut down and neighbors were evacuated.

"We've closed down businesses and the highway's closed and traffic is backed up, and all of this was over his unwillingness to cooperate," said Todd Thompson, of the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office.

"They really didn't know what they were up against," Mwangi said.

The standoff came to an end when deputies said Graham tried to escape the surrounded apartment. They said he used an electric drill to take down a door connected to a neighboring apartment.

However, officers were waiting for Graham on the other side of that door.

"When he came through the door he had gun in his hand, and we discovered later that he had a gun in his pocket and about five knives," Thompson said.

Deputies used a Taser gun on Graham took him into custody without further incident.