Revenge on corrupt authorities — the story of Marvin Heemeyer.
Very often you can hear the opinion that the most dangerous creature in the world is man. And in some situations it is difficult to disagree with this. But if this is so, then what is a man driven to despair capable of? A man with nothing to lose?
Before moving on to revenge itself, Marvin Heemeyer should first tell a short background to this conflict. Marvin lived in the small town of Granby, Colorado. The population of which is only 2000 inhabitants. His main occupation was as a welder. He had his own workshop, where he repaired cars and some other equipment, which basically earned his living.
One side of Marvin’s workshop was adjacent to the Mountin Park cement plant. The plant management decided to expand the territory by building another processing line. This required the purchase of the adjacent land plots. Soon they were all bought out, almost all of them. The only exception was Marvin’s site.
Then there are two versions of what happened, both of which led to the same thing. The first version says that the management of the plant offered Marvin $ 250 thousand for his site. He seemed to agree at first, but then began to unreasonably raise the price. First, up to 400 thousand dollars, and then even up to 1 million. But many believe that this version was launched on the Internet by the family of the owner of the plant in order to tarnish Marvin’s reputation.
According to the second version, Marvin initially did not agree to sell his plot for any money. As it was not, the plant needed Marvin’s land at any cost. After it became clear that Marvin would not agree to the terms of the plant voluntarily, a huge corporation, taking advantage of the corruption of the local administration, began to hound Marvin. As mentioned earlier, the town was small. And everything in this town was run by the Thomson family, with whom the plant management actually had to come to an agreement. When this happened, it was the beginning of Marvin’s troubles.
He was blocked off the road that he used when approaching his workshop. In response, Marvin decided to pave another road, buying a bulldozer for this. But the administration refused him to build a new road. The bank found fault with a previously issued mortgage loan and threatened to take away the house. Several times Marvin was nagged by the tax and fire authorities, as well as the Sanitary and Epidemiological Inspectorate, which issued a $ 3,000 fine on unconnected sewer pipes in Marvin’s territory. However, in principle, Marvin could not connect to the sewer, since the land on which the ditch should have been dug also belonged to the plant, and he was in no hurry to give him permission. As a result, Marvin paid endless fines and even at some point began to attach notes with the word “Cowards” to the receipt.
Marvin spent several weeks in his workshop. During this time, his father died. Marvin went to bury him, and while he was away, he turned off the light and water. He tried to challenge all these decisions in court, but it was useless. As a result, Marvin, a former military man, closed for several months in his workshop in order to take revenge on everyone who tried to take his land plot.
On June 4, 2004, Marvin finished his creation. A huge powerful bulldozer, sheathed with 12 mm armor. It was covered with armor everywhere, there were not even places through which one could look at the road. Instead, several cameras were installed with the display of images on monitors located in the cockpit. In addition, the cockpit contained a refrigerator, air conditioner, food and water supplies, and gas masks. Three rifles were brought out from the cockpit.
Outside, it was impossible to get into the cockpit, Marvin himself got into it before the armor, with the help of a special manipulator, was installed on the bulldozer. It’s easy to guess that it was also impossible to get out of the bulldozer. However, Marvin apparently was not going to do this.
As a result, on June 4, 2004 at 2:30 pm, Marvin began implementing his plan of revenge. To begin with, he drove through the territory of the plant. Demolishing the buildings of the management plant, workshops and in general everything to the last barn. Then Marvin moved around the town, removed the facades from the houses of city councilors, destroyed the bank building, which was trying to put pressure on him through early repayment of the mortgage. He destroyed the building of a gas company that refused to fill his kitchen gas cylinders. I tried to blow up propane tanks with rifles, but failed. He destroyed the city hall, office buildings of the city council, fire brigade, warehouses. Several residential buildings owned by the mayor and the city police station. He destroyed the office of the local newspaper, which published articles against him, and the public library, which was simply unlucky enough to be in the same building as the mayor’s office. In short, Marvin demolished everything that had anything to do with the local authorities, including their private homes.
Of course, they tried to stop Marvin. At first, the local sheriff with assistants, using revolvers and shotguns, failed. Then the local storm brigade and forest rangers were raised on alarm. The stormtroopers had grenades, the rangers had rifles. One of the policemen climbed onto a bulldozer and tried to throw a grenade into the exhaust pipe, welding a grate into it. Marvin himself used those rifles that were brought out. However, for the most part, I used them mainly in the sky, for intimidation. But still, this did not give the police the opportunity to approach the bulldozer.
In total, counting the firing of the rangers, who gathered about 40 people, the bulldozer took more than two hundred hits, starting with service revolvers and ending with grenades. The mayor of the town wanted to call the National Guard to launch an airstrike on the bulldozer. However, local police officers, who by that time were joined by the state police, dissuaded the mayor from this venture, since it could only lead to increased destruction. Huge hopes were placed on the land transport vehicle, but the bulldozer demolished it without any problems.
All that the police could actually do in the end was to evacuate one and a half thousand residents and block the roads. When there was nothing to distribute, Marvin decided to demolish the small wholesale store Gambles, but for him this became the last goal, since during the demolition the bulldozer was covered with debris from the roof. It got stuck and stuck. And as a result, Marvin’s war ended at 4:25 pm. The police were afraid to approach the bulldozer for more than two hours, then they made a hole in the armor for a long time. When it was opened, it turned out that Marvin was not going to jail at all. By the time the police got to him, he was already dead from a bullet fired in his head.
Marvin’s revenge caused $ 5 million in damage to the city and $ 2 million to the plant. However, the plant resumed work in 10 days, everything else was rebuilt and repaired. Marvin’s bulldozer was later nicknamed “Killdozer”. The administration decided to take it apart in order to avoid it becoming some kind of symbol for many desperate people like Marvin who would decide to repeat his act.
Of course, Marvin’s actions were illegal, but during his retaliation, Marvin did not kill a single person. He only caused material damage to people who by all means prevented him from living peacefully. For this, many people treat Marvin quite positively, posthumously giving him the nickname “The Last Hero of the United States.” What exactly do you think about this whole situation?
