14 Years Ago Today, A Dude Designed A "Kill-dozer" And Destroyed An Entire Town Because Of Zoning Disputes With His Muffler Shop
There are some things that it’s so, so unfortunate Barstool wasn’t around to blog in real time. “Killdozer” is right at the top of the list. Marvin Heemeyer personally modifying a bulldozer into the ultimate machine of destruction and driving it through town, tearing down building and destroying basically the entire thing because he had a beef with city officials who kept fining him for zoning violations.
Possibly the most incredible overreaction of all time. God damn do I respect it. The ultimate response to somebody who is pissing you off. Keep sticking tickets in my mailbox. Keep calling me about zoning violations. I will literally tear your house down with construction equipment. Marvin is the dude who gets ragged on for a bad outfit and responds by making fun of your mom’s stage 5 cancer. Only he does it with a bulldozer.
The city announced plans to build a concrete plant next to his muffler shop. Talk about an eyesore. No matter – he went out, bought a bulldozer, and said he was just going to carve himself out a new access route so he could get to work every day. Simple solution. What a great compromise.
Only problem? The city rejected the road. Said he couldn’t build it. Zoning issue.
His response to this final straw of injustice?
He took 2 years turning the bulldozer into a motherfucking monster armored with steel and concrete and destroyed the whole damn town. Just fucking annihilated Town Hall and the former mayor’s house. To the point where the Governor allegedly almost called the National Guard to send fucking Apaches in with Hellfire missiles.
The machine used in the incident was a modified Komatsu D355A bulldozer,[9] fitted with makeshift armor plating covering the cabin, engine, and parts of the tracks. In places, this armor was over 1 foot (30 cm) thick, consisting of 5000-PSI Quikrete concrete mix fitted between sheets of tool steel (acquired from an automotive dealer in Denver), to make ad-hoc composite armor. This made the machine impervious to small arms fire and resistant to explosives: indeed three external explosions and more than 200 rounds of ammunition fired at the bulldozer had no effect on it.[1]
For visibility, the bulldozer was fitted with several video cameras linked to two monitors mounted on the vehicle’s dashboard; the cameras were protected on the outside by 3-inch (76 mm) shields of bulletproof plastic.[1] Onboard fans and an air conditioner were used to keep Heemeyer cool while driving, and compressed-air nozzles were fitted to blow dust away from the video cameras. He had made three gun-ports, fitted for a .50 caliber anti-material rifle, a .308 semi-automatic, and a .22 long rifle, all fitted with a half-inch-thick (1.3 cm) steel plate. Heemeyer apparently had no intention of leaving the cabin once he entered it.[1] Authorities speculated that he may have used a homemade crane – found in his garage – to lower the armor hull over the dozer and himself. [Wiki]”
Nobody was killed. Nobody was even injured. A local bakery owner said Heemeyer “went out of his way” not to harm anyone. Marvin shot himself in the head which is the sad ending of the whole thing, but at least no innocent people were hurt. Aside from the suicide thing, Marvin served as the embodiment of all of us hot-headed, high tempered people who can hold a grudge for as long as we need before unleashing our completely non proportional response.