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Ninja Realist
06-08-2006, 10:57 AM
Saw this on an FE Forum.


Never f*** with an angry American...

52 year old welder Marvin Heemeyer lived in Granby, Colorado fixing vehicle mufflers. His small repair shop was located near a concrete factory called Mountain Park. To Marvin and his neighbors' horrors, the owners of Mountain Park decided to expand the factory, forcing the people living near-by to sell their land to Mountain Park.

Sooner or later the factory's neighbors gave up, except for Marvin. Having tried every way possible, the owners of the factory failed to acquire his land. However all the surrounding land was now owned by the factory, which resulted in Marvin's shop getting cut off from the rest of the world.

Marvin tried everything in his powers to restore justice. Obviously, the city council and other politicians of the state were on the factory owners' evil capitalist side.

It's not surprising that Marvin lost the case to the owners, in court. After that Marvin was also given a $2500 fine for not having a connected sewer line. When paying the fine, Marvin attached a note to the check and ticket that read “Cowards.”

He was just one of those who would not give up.

On the 4th of June, 2004 during a rainy day Marvin rolled out into town on a bulldozer reinforced with metal sheets. He started with the concrete factory, destroying building after building, until the factory was demolished. Then it was the city council's turn followed by the town hall, then the bank, the public library, the fire station, a warehouse, the local paper and other buildings belonging to the mayor.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/Catechumen/Killdozer/PICT0003.jpg

Having tried to stop Heemeyer, the police finally understood that Marvin's bulldozer was unstoppable. More than 200 bullets were fired at the vehicle, causing no harm at all. The police force then decided to battle the titan with hand grenades. Once again their efforts were useless. Later a vehicle rigged with explosives was put in Marvin's path to destruction, it also had little luck in stopping him.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/Catechumen/Killdozer/PICT0002.jpg

Marvin returned fire using two semi-automatic .23 caliber rifles and a single .50 caliber semi-automatic rifle through specially designed holes in the vehicle's front, left and right sides.

All the police were able to do, was evacuate 1500 inhabitants (the town's population was 2200) and block all the roads, including a federal highway that lead to the town.

Marvin's war ended at 4:23 PM.

Having just finished destroying the Gambles Mall, the bulldozer suddenly stopped. The only thing that could be heard coming form Marvin's death machine was smoke out of a damaged radiator.

At first the police officers were too afraid to approach the thing. Trying to get Marvin out of his fortress, they had to make a hole in the armor. When they finally got through, Marvin was allready dead. He wasn't going to get into the enemy's hands alive.

Despite the great damage to property (13 buildings were destroyed, most requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to be replaced), no one besides Heemeyer was injured; observers noted that Heemeyer appeared to go out of his way to avoid injury to bystanders.

The governor said that the city looked as if a tornado had just gone through.

Later an investigation was carried out. It was discovered that Marvin's creation was so strong that even a powerful artillery blow would only cause minor damage. The bulldozer was totally covered in sheet metal, with each piece being at least half an inch thick. In places, the vehicle's armor was over one foot thick, consisting of concrete sandwiched between sheets of steel to make ad-hoc composite armor.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/Catechumen/Killdozer/PICT0009.jpg

To fit the bulldozer with this shell, Marvin had to use a self-made crane. "Lowering the protective armor onto the vehicle, Marvin knew he wouldn't be able to get out"- said police officials.

Although Marvin packed the interior with supplies such as water, food, ammo and a gas mask. To control the Killdozer, Marvin used 3 monitors and a couple of video cameras. In an event of the cameras being blinded by dust, they were fitted with air compressors.

It took Marvin two months to design the Killdozer, and according to sources, 1.5 years to build it.

“He was a fine lad,” - said the people that were close to Marvin. “They shouldn't have made him angry.” “If he was your friend, he was your best friend. And if he was your enemy, well he was your worst and most dangerous enemy.” - said Marvin's friends.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/Catechumen/Killdozer/PICT0025.jpg

Ritalin
06-08-2006, 12:41 PM
That dude is badass. My new hero.

A shame he's dead, that bulldozer is awesome.

I_am_I
06-08-2006, 01:18 PM
That is what we call "sticking it to the man."

Good work.

Dennis
06-08-2006, 01:41 PM
That is the most badass thing I have read, ever.

soundchazer
06-08-2006, 02:11 PM
Hulk Smash!

Urgh!

;)

Moe
06-08-2006, 04:01 PM
and they say terrorists are crazy... j/k...

what i really want to say is that guy is one bad ass mutha-shuch yo mouf...

General Suburbia
06-08-2006, 04:12 PM
I guess him being dead makes the story all the more legendary. Hope whereever he is now, he's made nice enemies to run over.

Pedro The Hutt
06-08-2006, 04:46 PM
Marvin was a loon, that's what he was. The wise man chooses his fights. And preferably only ones that he can almost certainly win. He should've just nicely sold his shop and started anew elsewhere. He'd still be alive, and possibly quite content too.

All in all he deserves qualification for the Darwin awards, if anything.

Moe
06-08-2006, 05:26 PM
theres hould be like a short movie or somethign rather about this incident
i think it would be a great short film

"small business man goes mad from the big baddies and the industrial giants of the town"

Rove
06-08-2006, 06:40 PM
theres hould be like a short movie or somethign rather about this incident. i think it would be a great short film
There is something similar to it, Stephen King's novel, Roadwork, about a man that fights a highway construction company that will pass over his home, therefore he arms himself (sans the Killdozer, I'm afraid) and waits for them to arrive. That book was written at least decade ago, so it doesn't have much of a connection to Marvin's Rampage in the first place.

Although I do think the guy must have been pretty tough to built and operate such a machine, I have to say I don't agree with some of his actions. Even when the article says "[...] observers noted that Heemeyer appeared to go out of his way to avoid injury to bystanders" he still destroyed public buildings that even if they belonged to the Mayor they were meant for the community. "Then it was the city council's turn followed by the town hall, then the bank, the public library, the fire station, a warehouse, the local paper and other buildings belonging to the mayor". The library and the fire station might belong indirectly to the Mayor, but their loss will not only affect him but the community as well, what's the point in not running over a couple of humans if you're going to destroy the chance of rescue in case there was a fire?

Major Tom
06-08-2006, 06:48 PM
Video!

The Killerdozer! (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ORLnxOsoM1U&search=killdozer)

More later!

Edit: Right....

Marvin was a loon, that's what he was. The wise man chooses his fights. And preferably only ones that he can almost certainly win. He should've just nicely sold his shop and started anew elsewhere. He'd still be alive, and possibly quite content too.

All in all he deserves qualification for the Darwin awards, if anything.

The sensible side of me Agree's with this. There were probably far more sensible, legal and survivable ways of going about this. He still may have lost his land, but he could have made his point. Not that the council behaved any better. Disconnecting his sewer line and then fining him for it, after having won a court case over possesion of the land, that would make anybody mad.

But the little boy in me is going 'd00d! He had a homemade tank! How awesome is that!?!'

Moe
06-08-2006, 08:38 PM
that was agreat video... music was an awesome touch.

Tamanegi Sensei
06-08-2006, 09:34 PM
Now I heard of a Symphony to Destruction, but this is ridiculous. And all that over some greedy company takin the land of the person who was already there. I'm on Marvin's side, even if he is crazy and dead.

Ritalin
06-09-2006, 04:58 AM
Marvin was a loon, that's what he was. The wise man chooses his fights. And preferably only ones that he can almost certainly win. He should've just nicely sold his shop and started anew elsewhere. He'd still be alive, and possibly quite content too.

All in all he deserves qualification for the Darwin awards, if anything.

I disagree. It's very common for big corps to pretty much steal away land (they do give you money and such, but if they want it, they WILL get it, one way or another...) and you'll be left high and dry. This same thing happened to my uncle in Gilbert, Arizona, when they were trying to build a mall right where his house is. He built this house himself (designed, used his own hands to build, etc), and was starting a family there at the time. The mall business eventually gave up, but if it went to a court that matters you can be 100% sure the corp would have won. This almost happened again when the government tried building a freeway system there (I think loop 101's original path), but by then the city grew to a large enough population that didn't want to give it up and the government put the highway somewhere else.

There is a large field/park by my old college in Phoenix, and I had friends who lived with it in their front yard. Walmart wanted to build there, effectively ruining the view these people bought their homes for, and having a super busy store in your front yard (which brings everything walmart has--white trash, rednecks, poor people/bums, noise, garbage, etc). Home owners actually owned pieces of this park, and walmart won. Now that area of town is kind of trashy.

It's even worse with construction corps because of pollution and general mess.

All these aside though, this is less about a guy going on a rampage and eventually killing himself (besides, hero's never live), and more about how ****ed up the political world is in the US right now. Almost always a corporation will win in court. Especially large ones. You could have taken this case as high up as you wanted, but the guy was pretty much fighting a loosing battle from day one, unless foul play was detected by the factory (but as we saw here... they won still).

To put in perspective where most state governments have their priorities: There are more malls (big, mini, strip, whatever) in the US than high schools.

soundchazer
06-09-2006, 06:21 AM
You also have to keep in mind that those places generate jobs. It is not as clear cut as you want it to be Rit. With a growing population, cities are pressured to bow down to the corporations to keep the generation of jobs flowing. They are in a no win situation... protect private property of a few, or generate income for many.

Ritalin
06-09-2006, 10:52 AM
of course, but you're also moving peoples residence, which in most cases also creates longer commute times.

But that wasn't my point, my point was that the government almost always sides with big corps.

soundchazer
06-09-2006, 10:59 AM
Again... if I had to ask 5 families to do a longer commute but allow 15 families to have an income, I would rule in favor of the 15 families getting a new income.

Roark
06-10-2006, 08:07 AM
I've always had a problem that Utilitarian mode of thinking applied to these situations. Sure, there's a net gain in that 15 people have an income, but I can't use that to justify the imposition of will upon those 5 people. Especially when there's no easy means of redress.