Marvin Hemeyer is America's last hero. Ruins of Cement Factory Administration Mountain Park Inc

Marvin Hemeyer was a welder, owner of a muffler repair shop in Granby. And Marvin was out of luck with the neighbors. The Mountain Park cement plant began to expand and actively buy up land from residents. The owners of the plant made a preliminary agreement with Hemeyer, but at the last moment he raised the price: from 250 thousand dollars, first to 375 thousand, and then to a million. Obviously, he did not want to sell anything, but wanted to continue to patch up the mufflers.

At some point, the owners of the plant began to sue Chimeyer, trying to explain to the justice system that the plant brings good, justice and jobs to the city, and Chimeyer, who at 52 had neither a wife nor children, is not particularly needed by anyone. Then the plant bought all the land around Marvin's estate, and now no one could bring him a muffler for repairs. The plant cut off all communications for him, including the sewerage system, and the city authorities quite rightly fined Biryuk for unsanitary conditions - he could not run a pipe on foreign soil.

Himeyer struggled languidly for two years. His hour came on June 4, 2004. On this day, an armored bulldozer drove out into the street.

Hemeyer was a real welder and a born engineer - well, or the plant's management did not think to cut his Internet cable. He took a regular bulldozer and welded an armored box for it. He calculated the armor with a margin. Each of its sheets consisted of two plates of half-inch (12.7 mm) steel, between which there was a cement pad. His "tank" had only four holes - two loopholes in the front and two in the back. Already in the bulldozer, Himeyer, using a makeshift remote-controlled crane, lowered the box of armor onto the bulldozer - he did not expect to get out of it. He had two rifles with him - one huge, caliber .50 (12.7 mm), the second - a hunting "small", and a revolver of 357 caliber. He carefully prepared: he had video cameras and monitors for the review, and compressors were connected to the cameras to clean them of dust.

Then everything was very scary. The bulldozer was moving slowly, but there was no way to stop it. He smashed the plant and drove into the city, rolled around the town hall, the bank, the office of the local newspaper that was campaigning against him, the judge's house (the judge himself had already died, but his widow lived in the house), demolished other buildings, only thirteen.

Why do we think that 52-year-old redneck welder Marvin Hemeyer is the heir to 35-year-old vagabond and madman John Rambo? They were both driven by the inhabitants of the small town, who put the common good above the rights of the individual. They both went crazy and reacted in a way that probably shouldn't have been. They both did their best not to kill anyone: all deaths in the movie "First Blood" are accidental, and Himeyer did not even scratch anyone at all: he continuously fired from his artillery, but only over their heads to scare off the cops. The sheriff and his deputies could not cope with both of them, and the National Guard had to be called.

And as in the case of Rambo, nobody could stop Chimeyera. The bulldozer got stuck when Hemeyer tried to demolish the supermarket, but they couldn't get Marvin out. He fired back for a while, then stopped. Then the police brought the autogen and opened the bulldozer in which the dead Marvin Himeyer was lying: he shot himself.

Spontaneous anarchists of all stripes immediately demanded to erect a monument to him in his homeland - an armored bulldozer would perfectly fit for this role. Neither the authorities, nor the locals, of course, even considered this option - the bulldozer, along with the armor, was handed over for scrap, at several different reception points and with all precautions so that the pieces of the revenge tank were not taken away for souvenirs.

The locals refused to consider Rambo-Chimeyer a hero. First, not everyone believed that he really did everything in order not to hurt anyone. There were people in the buildings he was demolishing, and only the low speed of the bulldozer and the sheriff's prompt actions - for example, the timely evacuation of the population - made it possible to avoid human casualties. In the library of the town hall, which Himeyer destroyed, there were classes for children. The Avenger shot the National Guardsmen and the owner cement plant who tried to stop the bulldozer. In addition, he tried to detonate the cylinders with liquefied gas with shots, if he succeeded, the police and residents of the surrounding houses would have died.

The hero in this situation was Deputy Sheriff Glen Trainer, who at some point jumped on the bulldozer and tried to find some hole to shoot at it and stop the monster. He, in particular, fired at the exhaust pipe brought out to the roof and even threw a grenade there. The grenade was a stun grenade and did not do any harm to the bulldozer.

Hemeyer did not kill anyone, but he inflicted damage, according to various estimates, at $ 4-5 million. The plant then closed and sold the hard-won land. The town raised money for restoration by subscription, but already without new jobs, taxes and gifts from the alleged city-forming enterprise. Nobody even discussed the idea of making the city a place of tourist pilgrimage for anarchists and putting the Chimeier bulldozer on the main square.

But on the other hand, John James Rambo was unlikely to be very popular in the city of Hope, and certainly no one would use the ruins of a sports and weapons store, blown up by a crazy Green Beret, as a local attraction.

STORIES

Marvin Hemeyer - America's Last Hero

This story has a sad ending. The inconspicuous town of Granby, Colorado, became known as the last resting place of the last American hero - Marvin Hemeyer (October 28, 1951 - June 4, 2004).

In general, 52-year-old welder Marvin Heemeyer lived in Granby, he repaired car mufflers and did not touch anyone. Until the local Mountain Park cement plant decided to expand. Marvin's small workshop was closely adjacent to the cement plant, which began to force Hemeyer and other neighbors to sell their land plots.

People are small and weak, and corporations are big and strong, so soon, in an unequal struggle, all the neighbors of the plant surrendered and ceded their land plots to him. But not Chimeyer. He officially bought his land for a workshop and a shop at an auction several years ago for pretty decent money. To do this, he sold his stake in a large car service in Denver and therefore did not intend to part with his legal property. The factory owners could not acquire its land, although they tried to do it by hook or by crook.

Desperate to resolve the issue amicably, Marvin began to persecute. Since all the land around the Khimeyer's workshop already belonged to the plant, all communications and the entrance to the house were blocked. Marvin decided to pave a different road, and even bought a decommissioned Komatsu D355A-3 bulldozer for this, rebuilding the engine on it in his workshop.

The city administration refused permission for the laying new road... The bank found fault with obtaining a mortgage loan and threatened to take away the house. Hemeyer tried to restore justice by suing Mountain Park, but he lost the legal battle.

Several times he was run over by the tax office with retail, fire and sanitary inspection, who fined $ 2,500 for the fact that in his workshop "there was a tank that did not meet sanitary standards." Marvin could not connect to the sewer to drain the sewage from the tank, since the land on which the ditch was to be dug also belonged to the plant, and the plant was not going to give him such permission. Marvin paid the fine by attaching a short note to the receipt when he sent it: "Cowards."

Some time later, his father died (March 31, 2004). Marvin went to bury him, and while he was away, they cut off the light, water and sealed his workshop. After that, he closed in the workshop for several months and practically no one saw him.

All this time, Hemeyer, disenchanted with the vaunted American justice, was completing the creation of a weapon of retaliation - an armored bulldozer. He sheathed his Komatsu with 12mm steel sheets lined with a centimeter layer of cement. Equipped with TV cameras with image display on monitors inside the cab. Equipped cameras with lens cleaning systems in case of blinding dust and debris. The prudent Marvin stocked up on food, water, a gas mask and weapons (Barrett M82 rifle, Ruger AC556 carbine, Magnum revolver with cartridges). By using remote control he lowered the armored box onto the chassis, locking himself inside. In order to lower this armor shell onto the bulldozer's cab, Hemeyer used a homemade crane. “Lowering it, Hemeyer understood that after that he would not get out of the car,” police experts said.

Marvin compiled a list of targets in advance - objects belonging to those whom he saw fit to take revenge on. To begin with, he drove through the territory of the plant, carefully demolishing the plant management building, production workshops and in general everything to the last barn. Then he moved around the town. I removed the facades from the houses of the members of the city council. Demolished the building of the bank, which tried to put pressure on him through early repayment of the mortgage loan. He destroyed the buildings of the gas company, which refused to refuel his kitchen gas cylinders after the fine, the city hall, the offices of the city council, fire department, a warehouse, several residential buildings that belonged to the mayor of the city. Dug up the local newspaper office and the public library. In short, Marvin demolished everything that had anything to do with local authorities including their private homes. Moreover, he showed good awareness of who owns what. The houses of other residents of the town were not touched by Marvin.

Of course, they tried to stop him. First, the local sheriff with assistants. Then the local police, using revolvers and shotguns. A local SWAT squad was raised on alert. Then the forest rangers. SWAT had grenades, rangers had assault rifles. Some particularly dashing sergeant jumped from the roof onto the hood of the bulldozer and tried to throw a stun grenade into the exhaust pipe, but the son of a bitch Himeyer, as it turned out, welded a grate there, so the only thing that the bulldozer lost as a result was the pipes itself. The driver's tear gases were not taken - the monitors could be seen in the gas mask. All attempts to stop the bulldozer were in vain.

Chimeyer actively fired back through the embrasures cut through the armor. Not a single person was hurt by his fire, because he shot much higher than their heads, in other words, into the sky, because he did not want innocent victims, but simply wanted to scare the security forces so that they would not bother him too much. He succeeded: the policemen no longer dared to approach him. In total, counting the gamekeepers, about 40 of them had gathered by that time. The bulldozer took more than 200 hits from everything the policemen had - from service revolvers to M-16s and grenades. They also tried to stop him with a hefty scraper (earth moving machine). However, Komatsu without special labor shoved the scraper into the front of the store. The car packed with explosives on the way of Chimeyer also did not give the desired result. The only achievement of the police in their attempts to counteract Marvin was the bulldozer radiator, punctured by a rebound - however, as the experience of quarrying shows, such bulldozers do not immediately pay attention even to a complete failure of the cooling system.

All that the police could actually do in the end was to evacuate 1.5 thousand residents and block all roads, including the federal highway number 40 leading to Denver (the blocking of the federal highway was especially shocking for everyone).

To the pile, Marvin decided to tear down the small wholesale store "Gambles". The bulldozer was ironing the ruins of a department store and stopped. In the sudden silence, steam whistled furiously from the punctured radiator. The bulldozer was covered with debris from the roof, it got stuck and stalled.

At first, the police were afraid for a long time to approach the Himeyer bulldozer, and then for a long time they made a hole in the armor, trying to get the welder out of his caterpillar fortress (three plastic charges did not give the desired effect). They were afraid of the last trap that Marvin could set for them. When the armor was finally blown through with an autogenous blowtorch, Marvin was already dead. The last patron Marvin kept for himself. He was not going to fall into the clutches of his enemies alive.

The consequences of the war Marvin accurately described the governor of Colorado: "the city looks like a tornado swept through it." The city was really damaged by $ 5,000,000, the plant - by $ 2,000,000. Given the small scale of the town, this meant almost complete destruction. The plant never recovered from the attack and sold the area along with the ruins.

Then the investigation began. It turned out that Hemeyer's creation was so reliable that it could withstand not only the explosion of grenades, but also an artillery shell. At first they wanted to put the Bulldozer on a pedestal and make it a local landmark, but most insisted on melting it down.

In humans, this incident evokes extremely mixed emotions. On the one hand, antisocial destructive actions are usually judgmental. But on the other hand, Hemeyer's act has won approval from many people in the United States and around the world. Marvin Himeyer began to be called “the last American hero”That challenged the social injustice that drowns little people in their unequal struggle with big corporations and the state machine. Many consider Marvin Hemeyer's act worthy of admiration, because he rightly fought for his rights: in his little war, only the property of his offenders suffered and not a single person died.

This story took place in 2004 in a small town in Colorado and at one time shook America and became known far beyond the borders of the United States.

So, in the town of Granby, whose population is only about 2 thousand people, an unremarkable person lived and worked for the time being - his name was Marvin John Himeyer... He worked as a welder, had his own workshop and was engaged in the repair and sale of car mufflers. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War, during which he served as a military technician at the airfield. Marvin was not married, and it is not known if he ever had a family at all. He also had no relatives in the town and its environs. He lived quietly and imperceptibly, was quite a law-abiding and modest guy. There is no consensus about his personal spiritual qualities. His neighbors and acquaintances call Himeyer "a pleasant person", but at the same time it is known that once, in a fit of anger, he threatened to kill the husband of a client who refused to pay him for the job. One of his closest companions says about him:

“If Marv was your friend, he was your best friend. But if he decided that he was your enemy, then he was your worst and most dangerous enemy. "

One way or another, for the time being, no one noticed anything out of the ordinary in the behavior of John Hemeyer. Until Mountain Park decided to expand its cement plant. To do this, she began to buy up plots located near the enterprise, while offering decent compensation for them. The owners of the plant wanted to buy out Marvin's land too. It was a fairly large piece of land - at one time John bought it for several tens of thousands of dollars. Although the company offered a quite decent price, Hemeyer did not agree and asked for 250 thousand dollars, but soon changed his mind and raised the price to 375 thousand, and then even demanded 1 million dollars. I must say, there is information that big money initially he was not offered, but still it was about a very good compensation.

Negotiations dragged on until 2001, when the zoning commission and city authorities approved a plan to expand the plant. However, the stubborn welder did not calm down and tried to appeal the decision in court, albeit unsuccessfully. Marvin began to be slowly squeezed out of his area. The expansion of the factory blocked his access to the workshop. The city authorities fined him for various violations of 2.5 thousand dollars. The sewerage system was first cut off to the owner of the car repair shop, and when he was away for his father's funeral, water and electricity were also cut off, and the workshop itself was sealed. Then Marvin moved to decisive action.

I must say that when his road was blocked, he bought a decommissioned quarry bulldozer " Komatsu D355A-3". This is a huge machine, such equipment is used, for example, by the company "Gazprom" at polar developments. With the help of a bulldozer, he wanted to pave his own road to the workshop, but he was not allowed to do this. And then from this tractor, Hemeyer decided to make a hellish machine of revenge. He worked on it for almost a year and a half in his workshop. He welded it with 12 mm steel sheets, and made a spaced double armor: a layer of concrete was laid between the layers of metal. This made the homemade armored car almost invulnerable. Later, 200 bullets fired at him and three explosions would hardly harm him.

Monitors were installed inside to guide the bulldozer through the video cameras outside. The cells were protected by armored plastic and even equipped with a pneumatic cleaning system. Marvin thought through everything to the smallest detail. Inside there was an air conditioner, a gas mask, a refrigerator with some provisions and water. He also prepared weapons: a Ruger-223 carbine, a Remington-306 rifle, pistols and ammunition. John initially knew that he would no longer get out of the cockpit, so with the help of a remote control of the crane he lowered another armored box onto the roof, blocking the exit.

On June 4, 2004, he drove out of the garage. Himeyer had outlined the objects in advance, which he decided to wipe off the face of the earth. First, he leveled the cement plant he hated, all the shops and the administration building; ripped up the facades of the houses of city councilors; destroyed the bank, which wanted to take away his workshop, finding fault with the allegedly incorrectly executed loan. Then the buildings were demolished: the city hall, city council, fire inspection, as well as the house where the widow of the former mayor lived. Even the office of the gas company, which refused to refuel Marvin's cylinders, and the editorial office of the newspaper that wrote articles about him, did not survive.

13 administrative buildings were destroyed. And the damage caused was $ 7 million. Despite the fact that Chimeier demolished almost half of the city, by some miracle none of the residents was hurt. Of course, they tried to stop the bulldozer. They shot at him, threw grenades at him, blocked his way with a road tractor-grader, but no one could even slow down the destruction machine. The grader was easily thrown aside, and when the cooling radiator was shot at the armored car, it still continued its inexorable march. The engines of such cars are very strong, and they will not soon go crazy from overheating.

Finally, the "Killdozer" (that is, the killer bulldozer, as it was named afterwards) nevertheless got stuck in the ruins of a building, falling into a small basement. He could not leave - the engine finally jammed from overheating. The cab was cut only the next day. When it was opened, it turned out that John Marvin had already been dead for 24 hours. The 52-year-old welder shot himself in the head as soon as he finished his job. Kildozer decided to cut it into many pieces and take them to different dumps, since Hemeyer had fans who could disassemble the car for souvenirs.

This is such an amazing story, especially for the law-abiding United States of America. This case can be assessed in different ways. Marvin found a considerable number of admirers all over the world. He was called "America's last hero" and was used as a symbol of confrontation an individual soulless state system.

So, how did a perfectly respectable American taxpayer and socially useful citizen come to this life? Of course, everything can be attributed to the military past, to the "echo of war" and the "Vietnamese syndrome." But after all, although Marvin served in Vietnam, during the war he worked as a mechanic at an airfield, repairing and maintaining aircraft of the US Air Force, and it is not known whether he took any part in the hostilities at all. Although, of course, war is not a mother's mother and always leaves a certain imprint on the psyche of people who have been to it.

It is also difficult to believe that Hemeyer was a mentally ill, inadequate person. No one noticed mental abnormalities in his behavior. In addition, over the course of a year and a half, he carried out his project in a very rational, balanced and thoughtful manner.

We, "born in the USSR" and living in Russia, where, unfortunately, always "the severity of the laws was compensated by the non-binding nature of their execution" and "the laws were like a dumbbell: where you turned, it went there", where "from prison and from the bag is not no one - from a proletarian to an oligarch - swears to us all why Marvin was so outraged by the decision of the authorities to expand the plant and revise the boundaries of his property with the payment of compensation to him. For us, such a situation is, unfortunately, harsh everyday life. They build a new road, a microdistrict or an elite settlement - and the house, in which you were probably born and built by your parents, is demolished, and you are given an apartment in a concrete box, in a completely different area, inconvenient for you. This happens all the time.

But all this is an unthinkable chaos for the American man in the street. How! After all, this is my private property. And it is sacred, I am a free citizen of a free country. Although corruption and human insecurity before the law are present in America, especially now. Of course, it is unpleasant for everyone to leave the familiar place that you yourself chose, got used to it and arranged it. But the money was also offered to Himeyer, a lot, several times more than the real cost of the site - so to speak, compensation for moral damage. And I'm sure there is a lot of free land in Colorado, tea is not Rublevo-Uspenskoe. One could easily buy a new site and rebuild the workshop even better and more than before, not even one. In addition, besides the seizure of property, there are much more terrible things. For example, when you or your loved ones are illegally imprisoned or when the state takes your children away, which is often practiced in Western countries.

This man, according to the testimony of people who knew him personally, was prone to irascibility, rancor, resentment. Apparently, his tendency to anger, aggression and sociopathy prevented him from starting a family. It is also known that Chimeyer did not have relatives and friends in the city and its environs. He did not have a family, close people, communication and care of whom could soften his heart, become the goal of his life.

He knew in advance that after his action he would no longer get out of the tractor. His act was not revenge against Monte Cristo, with a desire to restore his good name and enrich himself. It was not even the act of Herostratus, who, although he was executed, saw the fruits of his destructive activities, saw the reaction of people and realized that he would not be forgotten. John didn't need all of this. Otherwise, he would not have shot himself in the cockpit, but, having done his job, calmly surrendered to the authorities and would have spent not a very long time in a humane American prison, giving interviews and watching TV programs with his participation.

Its mission and purpose were completely different. In this case, the satisfaction of the thirst for revenge, which lasted several tens of minutes, because the bulldozer very quickly was able to turn half the city into ruins, was the goal to which Marvin had been for several years. Surely, he repeatedly imagined how the city would shudder from the lion's roar of the 400-horsepower Killdozer engine. How pavements will tremble and glass clink when a multi-ton steel monster rolls towards its targets. How the offices and houses of hated enemies will crumble and fall.

According to local authorities, he fired 15 shots, including at transformers and propane cylinders, which posed a huge threat to the population. True, there are other eyewitness testimonies that Hemeyer fired into the air to scare off the police. But one way or another, if you suddenly demolish 13 buildings in broad daylight and at the same time shoot right and left, only a miracle can save people from death.

Overall rating of the material: 4.9

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An incredible event took place in 2004 in Granby, Colorado.

Marvin Heemeyer is an American welder who owns a muffler repair shop in Granby, Colorado. The town is microscopic, with 2200 inhabitants. Mine land plot he officially bought out for a workshop and a store for pretty decent grandmother at an auction (something about $ 15,000, for this he sold his share in a large car service in Denver). Fifty-two-year-old welder Hemeyer managed to live in Granby for several years, fixing car mufflers. His small workshop was closely adjacent to the Mountain Park cement plant. To the displeasure of Himeyer and other neighbors of the plant, Mountain Park decided to expand, forcing them to sell their land plots.

Sooner or later, all the neighbors of the plant surrendered, but not Himeyer. The factory owners could not acquire its land, although they tried to do it by hook or by crook. In general, desperate to culturally resolve the issue, the peasant began to persecute. Since all the land around the workshop already belonged to the plant, all communications and the entrance to the house were blocked. Marvin decided to build a different road, and even bought a decommissioned Komatsu D355A-3 bulldozer to do so and rebuild the engine in his workshop. However, the city government refused permission to build a new road. The bank found fault with obtaining a mortgage loan and threatened to take away the house. Hemeyer tried to restore justice by suing Mountain Park, but he lost the legal battle.

Several times the retail tax office, fire inspection, sanitary and epidemiological inspection, the latter issued a fine of $ 2,500 for the enchanting "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line" meeting sanitary standards. " Marvin could not connect to the sewer, since the land on which the ditch should be dug also belonged to the plant and the plant was in no hurry to give him such permission. Marvin paid. Attaching to the receipt when sending a short note - "Cowards". After a while, his father died, Marvin went to bury him, and while he was away, they cut off the light, water and sealed his workshop. After that, he locked himself in the workshop. Almost nobody saw him.

The creation of the Armored Bulldozer took about two months, according to some reports, and about one and a half years, according to others. She sheathed it with twelve-millimeter steel sheets, laid with a centimeter layer of cement. Equipped with TV cameras with image display on monitors inside the cab. Equipped cameras with lens cleaning systems in case of blinding dust and debris. The prudent Marvin stocked up on food, water, ammunition and a gas mask. (Two "Ruger-223" and one "Remington-306" with cartridges.) Using the remote control, he lowered the armored box onto the chassis, locking himself inside. To lower this shell onto the bulldozer's cab, Hemeyer used a homemade crane. "Lowering it, Hemeyer realized that after that he would not get out of the car," police experts said. And at 14:30 I left the garage.

Marvin drew up a list of goals ahead of time. All whom he considered it necessary to take revenge on.
Hemeyer returned fire from two twenty-third semi-automatic rifles and one fifty-caliber semi-automatic rifle through the loopholes specially made in the armor on the left, right and front, respectively. However, according to experts, he did everything so that none of the people were injured, shooting more to intimidate and not letting the police poke their noses from behind their cars. None of the police officers received a scratch.

To begin with, he drove through the territory of the plant, carefully demolishing the building of the plant management, production workshops and in general everything to the last barn. Then he moved around the town. I removed the facades from the houses of the members of the city council. Demolished the building of the bank, which tried to press on it through early repayment of the mortgage loan. He destroyed the buildings of the Ixel Energy gas company, which refused to refuel its kitchen gas cylinders after a fine, the city hall, city council office, fire department, a warehouse, several residential buildings belonging to the mayor of the city. To a heap he ransacked the editorial office of the local newspaper and the public library. In short, he demolished everything that had anything to do with the local authorities, including their private houses. Moreover, he showed good awareness of who owns what.

They tried to stop Himayer. First, the local sheriff with assistants. Let me remind you that the bulldozer was equipped with a centimeter spaced armor. Local police used nines and shotguns. With a clear result. With zero. A local SWAT squad was raised on alert. Then the forest rangers. SWAT had grenades, rangers had assault rifles. Some particularly dashing sergeant jumped from the roof onto the hood of the bulldozer and tried to throw a stun grenade into the exhaust pipe. It's hard to say what he wanted to achieve - the son of a bitch Himayer, as it turned out, welded a grate there, so the only thing that the bulldozer lost as a result was the pipes itself. The sergeant, of course, also survived. The driver's tear-race did not take - the monitors could be seen in the gas mask. Hemayer actively fired back through the embrasures cut in the armor. Not a single person was hurt by its fire. Because he shot much higher than the heads. To put it simply, into the sky. However, the police did not dare to approach him anymore. In total, counting their rangers, about 40 people had gathered by that time. The bulldozer took over 200 hits from everything from service revolvers to M-16s and grenades. They tried to stop him with a hefty scraper. "Komatsu D355A" easily shoved the scraper backwards into the front of the store and left it there. The car packed with explosives on the way of Himayer also did not give the desired result. The only achievement was the radiator punctured by a rebound - however, as the experience of quarrying shows, such bulldozers do not immediately pay attention even to a complete failure of the cooling system.

All that the police could actually do in the end was to evacuate 1,500 residents and block all roads, including the Interstate 40 leading to Denver (the blocking of the federal highway was especially shocking for everyone). To the heap, Marvin decided to tear down the small wholesale store "Gambles" ... In my opinion, there was simply nothing more to demolish, there was still a station for refueling with liquefied gas, but its explosion would have blown up half of the town without disassembling where the mayor's house was and where the garbage man was.

The bulldozer stood, ironing the ruins of the Gambles department store. In the sudden deathly silence, steam escaping from a punctured radiator fiercely whistled, it was covered with debris from the roof, it got stuck and stalled.

At first, the police were afraid for a long time to approach the Himeyer bulldozer, and then for a long time they made a hole in the armor, trying to get the welder out of his caterpillar fortress (three plastic charges did not give the desired effect). They were afraid of the last trap that Marvin could set for them. When the armor was finally pierced with an autogenous blowtorch, he was already half a day dead. The last patron Marvin kept for himself. He was not going to fall into the clutches of his enemies alive.

As the Governor of Colorado said, "The city looks like a tornado swept through it." The city was really damaged by $ 5,000,000, the plant - by $ 2,000,000. Given the scale of the city, this meant its almost complete destruction. The plant never recovered from the attack and sold the territory along with the ruins. Some smart people wanted to put the bulldozer on a pedestal and make it a landmark, but most insisted on melting it down.

Then the investigation began. It turned out that “Khimeyer's creation was so reliable that it could withstand not only a grenade explosion, but also a not very powerful artillery shell: it was completely covered with armored plates, each of which consisted of two sheets of half-inch (about 1.3 cm) steel, fastened together with a cement pad ”.

“He was a nice guy,” recall people who knew Chimeier closely.

"You shouldn't have pissed him off." “If he was your friend, then it was best friend... And if the enemy is the most dangerous, ”say Marvin's comrades.

This act has drawn admiration from many people in the United States and around the world. Marvin Hemeyer began to be called "the last American hero."

Completely taken from here

Democracy is the biggest and most enduring myth of our time. Sometimes people appear who dispel this myth with their lives and history. Usually, to show “the most democracy of all democracies,” America is remembered. Well, I already wrote about one American case today. But for a long time I wanted to write about the story of a simple working guy, Marvin Himeyer, who proved that one person can make thousands of people think, albeit at the cost of his own life.

Marvin Heemeyer (October 28, 1951 - June 4, 2004) was an American welder who owned a muffler repair shop in Granby, Colorado. The town is microscopic, with 2200 inhabitants. He officially bought his land plot for a workshop and a shop for pretty decent money at an auction (something about $ 15,000, for this he sold his share in a large car service in Denver).

Granby, Colorado

Also, as a hobby, he built snowmobiles and in the winter rode them around Granby for newlyweds. Like a limousine. He even had an appropriate license (I never suspected that such an activity could be licensed at all). In my opinion, the uncle was quite good-natured and extremely cool. However, "While many people described Heemeyer as a likeable guy, others said he was not someone to cross." At one time he served in the Air Force, as an airfield technician, and since then has worked steadily in the engineering part. He lived to be fifty-two years old, not married (some kind of sad love story he had at one time).

Fifty-two-year-old welder Hemeyer lived in Granby for several years fixing car mufflers. His small workshop was closely adjacent to the Mountain Park cement plant. To the displeasure of Himeyer and other neighbors of the plant, Mountain Park decided to expand, forcing them to sell their land plots.

Marvin had a bulldozer of this brand

The city administration refused permission to build a new road. The bank found fault with obtaining a mortgage loan and threatened to take away the house.

Hemeyer tried to restore justice by suing Mountain Park, but he lost the legal battle.

Several times the retail tax office, fire inspection, sanitary and epidemiological inspection, the latter issued a fine of $ 2,500 for the enchanting "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line" complying with sanitary standards. ”), let me remind you, it was about a car repair shop. Marvin could not connect to the sewer, since the land on which the ditch should have been dug also belonged to the plant and the plant was in no hurry to give him such permission. Marvin paid. Attaching to the receipt when sending a short note - "Cowards". After a while, his father died (31-Mar-2004), Marvin went to bury him, and while he was away, they cut off the light, water and sealed his workshop. After that, he locked himself in the workshop. Almost nobody saw him.

Finally, on June 4, 2004, Himayer took concrete revenge. For all.

It looked like this:

Marvin drew up a list of goals ahead of time. All whom he considered it necessary to take revenge on.
"Sometimes, as he put it in the notes, reasonable men must do unreasonable things."

Hemeyer returned fire from two twenty-third semi-automatic rifles and one fifty-caliber semi-automatic rifle through specially made loopholes in the armor on the left, right and front, respectively. However, according to experts, he did everything so that none of the people were injured, shooting more to intimidate and not letting the police poke their nose out of their cars. None of the police officers received a scratch.

The pursuit

Sheriff's parking lot

Ruins of Cement Factory Administration Mountain Park Inc.

To begin with, he drove through the territory of the plant, carefully demolishing the building of the plant management, production workshops and in general everything to the last barn. Then he moved around the town. I removed the facades from the houses of the members of the city council. Demolished the building of the bank, which tried to press on it through early repayment of the mortgage loan. He destroyed the buildings of the Ixel Energy gas company, which after the fine refused to refuel its kitchen gas cylinders, the building of the mayor's office, the office of the city council, the fire department, a warehouse, several residential buildings belonging to the mayor of the city. To a heap he tore down the editorial office of the local newspaper and the public library. In short, he demolished everything that had anything to do with the local authorities, including their private houses. Moreover, he showed good awareness of who owns what.

Cement Plant Mountain Park Inc.

Municipal building that served as a hall and library

Liberty Bank

Himayer actively fired back through the embrasures cut through the armor. Not a single person was hurt by its fire. Because he shot much higher than the heads. To put it simply, into the sky. However, the police did not dare to approach him any more. In total, counting their rangers, about 40 people had gathered by that time. The bulldozer took over 200 hits from everything from service revolvers to M-16s and grenades. They tried to stop him with a hefty scraper. "Komatsu D355A" easily shoved the scraper backwards into the front of the store and left it there. The car packed with explosives on the way of Himayer also did not give the desired result. The only achievement was the radiator punctured by a rebound - however, as the experience of quarrying shows, such bulldozers do not immediately pay attention even to a complete failure of the cooling system.

Highway 40

The "Himayer War" ended at 4:23 pm.

To the pile, Marvin decided to tear down the small wholesale store "Gambles". In my opinion, there was simply nothing more to demolish, there was still a station for refueling with liquefied gas, but its explosion would have blown up half of the town without disassembling where the mayor's house was and where the garbage man was.

The bulldozer stood, ironing the ruins of the Gambles department store. In the sudden deathly silence, steam escaping from the punctured radiator fiercely whistled, it was covered with debris from the roof, it got stuck and stalled.

At first, the police were afraid for a long time to approach the Himeyer bulldozer, and then for a long time they made a hole in the armor, trying to get the welder out of his caterpillar fortress (three plastic charges did not give the desired effect). They were afraid of the last trap that Marvin could set for them. When the armor was finally pierced with an autogenous blowtorch, he was already half a day dead. The last patron Marvin kept for himself. He was not going to fall into the clutches of his enemies alive.

Himayer was not one to give up!

As the governor of Colorado aptly put it, "the city looks like a tornado swept through it." The city was really damaged by $ 5,000,000, the plant - by $ 2,000,000. Given the scale of the town, this meant almost complete destruction. The plant never recovered from the attack and sold the area along with the ruins.

Destruction Map

They called him "Killdozer"

Some clever men wanted to put the bulldozer on a pedestal and make it a tourist attraction, but most insisted on melting it down. For the residents of the town, this incident evokes, as you might guess, extremely mixed emotions.

“He was a nice guy,” recall people who knew Chimeier closely.

"You shouldn't have pissed him off." “If he was your friend, it was your best friend. And if the enemy is the most dangerous, ”say Marvin's comrades.

This act has drawn admiration from many people in the United States and around the world. Marvin Hemeyer began to be called "the last American hero." Now this case is assessed as a spontaneous anti-globalization action.

This is how Marvin Hemeyer's action looked like:

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