Killdozer Route and Locations, Granby, Co, from Google Earth KILLDOZER: How a Man Made His Own Tank | Tales From the Bottle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFd4VxpyLbE Marvin John Heemeyer Born October 28, 1951 was an American welder and an automobile muffler repair shop owner who demolished numerous buildings with a modified bulldozer in Granby, Colorado on June 4, 2004. Heemeyer had feuded with Granby town officials, particularly over zoning disputes and fines for violating city ordinance codes. His feud came to a head on June 4, 2004. Over eighteen months Heemeyer had secretly modified a Komatsu D355A bulldozer by adding layers of steel and concrete armor.[1] He demolished the Granby town hall, the former mayor's house, the local power and gas utilities, as well as several businesses owned by members of the community he had been in active disputes with. This event would go down in history as the Killdozer Rampage. In total Heemeyer caused more than 7 Million dollars in damages to the town.

Background

Marvin Heemeyer was born on October 28, 1951 in South Dakota and later moved to Granby, Colorado.[2]

According to a neighbor, Heemeyer moved to town more than ten years before the incident. His friends stated that he had no relatives in the Granby–Grand Lake area.[3]

John Bauldree, a friend of Heemeyer, said that he was a likable person.

Heemeyer's brother Ken stated that he "would bend over backwards for anyone". However, while many people described Heemeyer as an affable person, local resident Christie Baker claimed that her husband was threatened by Heemeyer after refusing to pay for a disputed muffler repair.[4]

Many people in the documentary “Tread” were extremely favourable of Marv, even 15 years after the events that transpired. Often in the documentary they echoed his sentiments, and had negative things to say about those who wronged Marv.

Zoning dispute

In 1992, Heemeyer purchased 2 acres of land in Granby. He purchased the land for $42,000 to build a muffler shop. Later Heemeyer was approached to sell the land to Cody Docheff who wanted to build a concrete batch plant in the area. The Docheff family and the Thompson family were prominent, wealthy families with strong connections to local government.

They offered $250,000 for the land, but Heemeyer countered with 375,000. They never got close enough in negotiations to settle on a deal, so it fell through. This is when the Docheff family sought rezoning of the land surrounding Heemeyer’s muffler shop with the Town Council of Granby. Nobody knows what really went on behind the scenes, but the results of the rezoning were this: In 2001, Granby's zoning commission and trustees approved the construction of the concrete plant on the land surrounding Heemeyer’s shop. Heemeyer attempted to appeal the decision, gathering signatures from other townsfolk but ultimately the council dismissed his appeal. He attended rezoning meetings, and protested the move. The rezoning and subsequent construction of the Docheff’s business blocked access to Heemeyer’s Muffler shop.

He was then subsequently fined $2,500[6] by the town council and a city judge for various violations, including "not being hooked up to the sewer line." and having “”junk cars” on his property. They filed an injunction to prevent him from using his porterty until he hooked up to the sewer line.

He had initially been unable to connect to the new sewer line as the line ran some sixty feet away from his property and the city expected him to pay the nearly $80,000 cost of laying the connector.

After the concrete plant was built the city council denied him the easement necessary to join to the new line underneath the plant.[7]

He attempted to obtain permission to install a sewer line under eight feet of the rezoned land owned by the Docheff family, but they refused. He then purchased a bulldozer to construct a new road to allow customers access to his

now blocked off muffler shop. The town council refused his submitted plans for this as well! Defeated, Heemeyer wrote a cheque for $2500 and sent it to the Council. -- Adding in the memo line “cowards & liars dept.” Not long after this, Heemeyer sold the muffler shop to a local trash company and was given six months to move out. “The only crimes here are the cruel things people did that forced a hard-working American entrepreneur to take vengeance on those who wronged him in the most American way possible.” -Forum Something Awful

Bulldozer modification

Heemeyer used this armor-plated Komatsu D355A bulldozer to destroy 13 buildings in Granby, Colorado.

Heemeyer began modifying a Komatsu D355A Bulldozer in his now closed muffler shop. He referred to his creation as the "MK Tank" in audio recordings.

It was 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 sandwiched 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.

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 clear bulletproof lexan.[1]

Compressed-air nozzles were fitted to blow dust away from the video cameras.

Onboard fans and an air conditioner were used to keep Heemeyer cool while driving.

He had made three gun-ports, fitted for a .50 caliber rifle, a .308 semi-automatic rifle, and a .22LR rifle, all fitted with a one-half-inch-thick (1.3 cm) steel plate.

He also covered the outside with thick grease to make it difficult to climb on top of.

Heemeyer took about a year and a half to prepare; in his notes he wrote: "It is interesting to observe that I was never caught.

This was a part-time project over a 1.5 year time period."

The modified bulldozer came to be known as "Killdozer" after the name of a short story by Theodore Sturgeon.[10] Where an eight-man construction crew is building an airstrip and related facilities on a small Pacific island during the course of World War II. They uncover and break open an ancient stone "temple".

This releases an ancient being composed of pure energy, left over from a war involving sentient machines in a long-lost civilization, which "possesses" a bulldozer being used by the construction crew.

Demolition

On June 4, 2004, just after 3:00pm Heemeyer drove his armored bulldozer out through the wall of his former muffler shop.

He immediately proceeded to absolutely level the Docheff's concrete plant.

While this was happening, members of the plant staff were frantically calling 911.

One of Cody’s employee’s handed him a loaded revolver, which Docheff then proceeded to unload into the Bulldozer. This had no effect. Docheff then attempted to climb on the Killdozer, but was unsuccessful.

A policeman arrived on the scene with a shotgun. Around about this time, Cody Docheff approached the Killdozer in a front end loaded in an attempt to flip the Dozer. But the machine couldn’t lift it. Marv then fired several .50 calibre rounds into the bucket of the loader. There was some speculation at this time that the Killdozer may be remote controlled.

Marv then set out for the highway and towards Downtown Granby.

His next stop was the Mountain Parks Electric Building

He tore the front off this building and rolled a little further down the road until he arrived at the maple street builders, inc. He pushed a work truck straight through the front, essentially destroying the building.

By this point he had a few run-ins with some emergency vehicles.

But, the Killdoozer just rumbled onwards. Heemeyer had made it into town. A news helicopter had been alerted and was also now capturing the events from above.

He then made his way down Mesa St. & Jasper Ave. and took aim at City Hall and the police station.

He really did a number on City Hall. Absolutely leveled a good chunk of the building. Which makes sense given the bad blood between him and the council. He then made his way towards the Liberty Savings Bank.

Cleaving off a good chunk of the bank, he then proceeded up the road towards SkyHi News

Heemeyer had felt he had been unfairly treated by some editorial columns at the time. Patrick Brower a local reporter had writer some critical articles of Heemeyer.

After demolishing the News building, he pushed a number of cars into the street and headed towards the Mayor’s house.

He flattened Mayor Dick Thompson’s house (who was already deceased at the time of the rampage)

Heemeyer then parked next to a drainage ditch and fired his .50 caliber rifle at a set of gas tanks at the Independent Gas Co. Unfortunately for Heemeyer, the tanks did not explode like he had intended. He gives up and pushes back towards town.

At this point, Clarke Brandsteter driving a pavement scraper attempts to stop Heemeyer

But the sheer power of the Killdozer was more than enough to overwhelm the scraper.

After getting past Brandsteter, Heemeyer makes his way back into town.

At one point, Undersheriff Glenn Trainor climbed atop the bulldozer and rode it "like a bronco-buster, trying to figure out a way to get a bullet inside the dragon".[2] However, he was forced to jump off to avoid being hit with debris.[2]

At this point, local authorities and the Colorado State Patrol feared they were running out of options in terms of firepower, and that Heemeyer would soon turn against civilians in Granby. Governor Bill Owens allegedly considered authorizing the National Guard to use either an Apache attack helicopter equipped with a Hellfire missile or a two-man fire team equipped with a Javelin anti-tank missile to destroy the bulldozer.

https://youtu.be/wm4h1dA8ORo?t=25

This was however, quickly deemed unnecessary when Heemeyer became trapped in the basement of a Gambles hardware store.

As late as 2011, Governor Owens's staff still vehemently denied considering such a course of action, but since then members of the State Patrol revealed that, to the contrary, the governor did consider authorizing an attack but ultimately decided against it due to the potential for collateral damage of a missile strike in the heart of Granby being significantly higher than what Heemeyer could have caused with his bulldozer.[16]

One officer dropped a flash-bang grenade down the bulldozer's exhaust pipe, with no apparent effect.

Local and state patrol, including a SWAT team, walked behind and beside the bulldozer, occasionally firing, but the armored bulldozer was impervious to their shots.

Attempts to disable the bulldozer's cameras with gunfire failed as the bullets were unable to penetrate the 3-inch (7.6 cm) bulletproof plastic.

He destroyed several more buildings on his way to the Gambles hardware store. He plowed into the front of the building, carving out one of the walls.

Gambles was owned by another man (Casey Ferrel) who had been named in a lawsuit by Heemeyer related to the rezoning. Ferell had sat on the council that voted against Marv, and allowed the batch plant to be constructed. Ferrel said in the Documentary “Tread” “I couldn’t see a negative for Marv related to the batch plant.” He pushed the Killdozer about halfway into the building, at which point, with fluid leaking from the engine, and a badly damaged radiator, he got one of the tracks stuck in a small basement of the hardware store. Heemeyer was now stuck, and the rampage was over.

About a minute later, one of the SWAT team members, who had swarmed around the machine, reported hearing a single gunshot from inside the sealed cab. It was later

determined that Heemeyer had shot himself in the head with a .357-caliber handgun.[1][17]

"Once he tipped that lid shut, he knew he wasn't getting out." One of the investigators stated.

Police first used explosives in an attempt to remove the steel plates, but after the third explosion failed, they cut through them with an oxyacetylene cutting torch.

Authorities were able to access and remove Heemeyer's body at 2:00 a.m. on June 5.[18]

Aftermath

The attack lasted for two hours and seven minutes, damaging thirteen buildings,[8] knocking out natural gas service to the town hall and the concrete plant, damaging a number of vehicles, and destroying part of a utility service center.[11]

Despite the great damage to property, Heemeyer hadn’t killed anyone during his rampage.[1]

The damage was estimated at $7 million.[12][13] According to Grand County commissioner James Newberry, emergency dispatchers used the reverse 911 emergency system to notify many residents and property owners of the rampage going on in the town.[14]

Defenders of Heemeyer contended that he made a point of not hurting anybody during his bulldozer rampage;[1] Ian Daugherty, a bakery owner, said Heemeyer "went out of his way" not to harm anyone.

Others offered different views. The sheriff's department argued the fact that no one was injured was not due to good intent as much as to good luck. Heemeyer had installed two rifles in firing ports on the inside of the bulldozer,[15] and fired fifteen bullets from his rifle at power transformers and propane tanks. "Had these tanks ruptured and exploded, anyone within one-half mile (800 m) of the explosion could have been endangered," the sheriff's department said. Twelve police officers and residents of a senior citizens complex were within such a range.[5]

In addition to writings that he left on the wall of his shed, Heemeyer recorded a number of audio tapes explaining his motivation for the attack. He mailed these to his brother in South Dakota shortly before stepping into his bulldozer.

Heemeyer's brother turned the tapes over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who in turn sent them to the Grand County Sheriff's Department. The tapes were released by the Grand County Sheriff's Office on August 31, 2004.

The tapes are about 2.5 hours in length.[20] The first recording was made on April 13, 2004. The last recording was made thirteen days before the rampage on May 22.

Investigators later found Heemeyer's handwritten list of targets.

According to the police, it included the buildings he destroyed, and the names of various people who had sided against him in past disputes.[22]

Notes found by investigators after the incident confirmed that the primary motivation for the bulldozer rampage was his frustration with the way he had been treated by the members of council, and other members of the Granby community. He felt that he had been supremely wronged.

“I am going to sacrifice my life, my miserable future that you gave me, to show you that what you did is wrong.” - He stated.

In one particularly prescient passage from his notes, he said: "I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable", "Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things."[9]

Fate of the bulldozer

On April 19, 2005, the town announced plans to scrap Heemeyer's bulldozer. The plan

involved dispersing individual pieces to many separate scrap yards to prevent

souvenir-taking.[19]

In popular culture

● Leviathan (2014 film) — According to the director of the movies, Zvyagintsev, the story of Marvin Heemeyer inspired him and it was adapted into a Russian setting.[23]

● Tread[24] — 2019 documentary film based on the rampage.

See also

● Shawn Nelson – perpetrator of a similar armored vehicle rampage in San Diego, California.

https://metallicman.com/laoban4site/the-tale-of-the-killdozer/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killdozer!_(short_story)#/media/File:AstoundingSF-Nov1944.jpg

https://www.skyhinews.com/news/photo-gallery-inside-the-bulldozers-devastation/

https://www.damninteresting.com/the-wrath-of-the-killdozer/

http://tanks-encyclopedia.com/marvin-heemeyers-armored-bulldozer/

https://owd.tcnj.edu/~hofmann/Granby/Granby.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Killdozer-Story-Colorado-Bulldozer-Rampage/dp/0982352018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbG9i1oGPA