Marvin Hemeyer is America's last hero. Himayer was not the kind to give up

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. He officially bought his land plot for a workshop and shop for quite decent money 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 man 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 the 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" (in general, in his workshop there was "a reservoir, not which meets sanitary standards. ”) The talk, I recall, was about an auto repair shop. 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 beforehand. 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 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 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 after a 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 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 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 Hemeyer bulldozer, and then they made a hole in the armor for a long time, 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, 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."

Completely taken from here

The tragic story of Marvin Hemeyer, a 52-year-old welder who has lived in the town of Granby for only a few years, excited not only the United States, but the whole world. Now this act is considered as a spontaneous action by an anti-globalist. Marvin Hemeyer is America's last hero. This is how journalists dubbed him for intransigence and uncompromising struggle against a corrupt state system.

Biography

Marvin Himayer was born on October 28, 1951. He graduated from school in 1968. A year later he went to serve in the US Air Force. On March 17, 1971, he was sent to fight in Vietnam. There he served at the air base as a senior aviator. After 4 years, he was demobilized, and he returned to his homeland, in Marvin's acquaintances describe his character in different ways. Some describe him as a nice and friendly guy, while others consider him unreliable, too suspicious and dangerous.

Adherent of the legalization of gambling

Despite the fact that Hemeyer did not live in the town of Granby for long, he managed to make both friends and enemies. His character was highly controversial. Take, for example, the case when, as the owner of a silencer repair shop, he once threatened his client to kill her husband if she did not pay him for the repair.

His acquaintances said that if you have a friend, then it is better not to find Marvin, but if he decides that you are an enemy, then it is difficult to imagine a more dangerous enemy than him.

Conflict situation

The life story of Marvin Hemeyer in the town of Granby at first did not bode well for anything tragic. Until the cement plant, near the walls of which his workshop was located, did not decide to expand. The fact is that not far from Gramby was the Aspen winter resort. Millionaires love to come there, and each of them wants to have their own home there. The fashion for winter cottages has provoked a construction boom, as a result of which the demand for cement has increased.

In 2001, the city authorities and a special commission approved the construction of a new cement plant for Mountain Park. After that, the owners of the enterprise began to buy up nearby land plots. Their methods, to put it mildly, were not always legal.

The cement company paid an average of 50 thousand dollars for each of the plots, but Hemeyer refused to sell his land at that price and asked for 270 thousand. When the buyers agreed, he raised the price to 500 thousand, and then to 1 million. Here are the owners decided to find a lawsuit on him.

Last straw

This is where the scandalous story of Marvin Hemeyer with the owners of the cement plant begins. According to the territorial plan approved by the city authorities, the company cut off the only road leading to the welder's workshop. Marvin filed an application with the court to appeal this decision, but lost. He wanted to get permission to install a sewage system, but the owner of the land refused him.

Seeing such a disrespectful attitude towards himself on the part of the official authorities, he buys a decommissioned killdozer for himself. Marvin Hemeyer personally repaired the engine and decided to independently build another road to his workshop, bypassing the factory territories. But here, too, he was disappointed, since the city administration also forbade him to do this, and even fined him for lack of sewage system for 2.5 thousand dollars. He paid the fine, and attached a note to the receipt with only one word - "cowards."

It seems that the story of Marvin Hemeyer would not have been so sad if the city authorities had not added the last straw to the cup of his patience. When his father died, he went to the funeral, and when he returned a few days later, he found that his water and electricity had been cut off and his workshop had been sealed. In addition, the local bank threatened to take his house from him, as it allegedly revealed an error in the registration of the mortgage loan.

Preparing for war

As already mentioned, in the spring of 2004, Marvin's father died. His younger brother's wife later recalled that Himeyer behaved a little strangely at the funeral, as if he had come to say goodbye to all his relatives. In addition, it seemed to her that he did not want to leave at all.

Marvin began work on improving his bulldozer almost as soon as he was denied permission to build a driveway to his workshop. He drove his tractor, which he planned to use for paving the road, into the garage and began to modify it.

Modernization

At first, Hemeyer decided to strengthen the engine cabin. To do this, he installed a homemade composite armor, which he made from sheets of steel and cement poured between them. After that, he equipped several embrasures around the control center itself, and also installed one video camera in front and one behind, and then displayed their image on the monitors in the cockpit.

Hemeyer Marvin John prepared very carefully, so he transferred a small supply of food and several bottles of water to the tractor cab. He did not forget about the air cylinder, gas mask and weapons. He also had a revolver.

It is assumed that he spent from three months to one and a half years upgrading his bulldozer. Surely Himeyer was amazed by the fact that none of the casual visitors to the workshop was surprised or alarmed to see such a powerful armored vehicle.

Before the war began, Marvin Hemeyer, he specially recorded his message on several cassettes. On them, he left an explanation of his act.

On Friday, June 4, he sent all the taped tapes to his younger brother, after which he locked himself in the bulldozer's cab. Using a makeshift remote-controlled crane, the man lowered the armored box onto the chassis. As mentioned earlier, he equipped his tractor with several video cameras and monitors. In addition, in case of their contamination with garbage or dust, the craftsman brought air compressors to them.

At 3 o'clock the same day, Marvin Hemeyer's bulldozer easily broke through the wall of the workshop and crashed into the Mountain Park concrete plant. After these actions, the 911 service was called without ceasing.

Cody Dochev, who witnessed how a huge and unusual armored tractor literally destroys the plant, wanted to intervene. He tried to get into the cockpit of the bulldozer, but they began to fire at him from embrasures.

After about 10-15 minutes, the buildings of the enterprise were completely destroyed, and several cars standing on its territory were destroyed. After that, Hemeyer's car drove onto the highway and rattled towards the city.

At this time, an unusual sight could be observed on the road: a whole line was lined up behind a slowly moving bulldozer, and all with sirens on. One of the police cars tried to block his path, but was crushed like a tin can. Glen Trainor, the sheriff's deputy, managed to climb onto the cab of a traveling bulldozer and fire 37 bullets from his service pistol, but it was impossible to pierce such armor.

Granby town

I must say that Chimeyer had a whole list of objects that he planned to destroy. When his car reached its final destination, he was already met by the city police. Of course, the employees had no weapons against such a whopper. Since it was impossible to pierce such armor with ordinary cartridges, special forces were called in to help, which tried to undermine the bulldozer. But all attempts to destroy the car and the person sitting in it failed.

All that the police could do in this situation was to warn local residents about the danger that threatened them. Meanwhile, this tragic event was broadcast live on all news TV channels from a helicopter flying over the city.

Despite the fact that it was rather difficult for Marvin to drive such a bulky and clumsy vehicle, he managed to find and destroy his intended targets. And they were the buildings of the city hall and the editorial office of the local newspaper, the house of the former mayor and other buildings. On the way to its targets, the bulldozer destroyed the cars left on the road. Although the damage was significant, none of the people were seriously injured.

Death of the last hero

The police soon got hold of an industrial bulldozer, but the armored Komatsu easily knocked it over to the side of the road. Within an hour, Marvin Hemeyer demolished 13 buildings and drove to the next target, the Gamble Equipment. The significant weight of the armor and the damage caused by small arms began to gradually affect the maneuverability of the tractor. In addition, the radiator was punctured and coolant was leaking from it. As a result, the car began to lose power and, breaking through the wall of the supermarket, fell under its own gravity into a small basement. could no longer pull the tractor out of the trap.

After that, a special forces group surrounded the vehicle and someone reported hearing a lone gunshot from the cockpit. The car stalled forever, finally completing its destructive march, which lasted only 2 hours and 7 minutes, causing $ 7 million in damage. Thus ended the story of Marvin John Chimeer.

Consequences

To get inside the cockpit, the special forces used explosives. It was possible to crack the armor only by using. After his 12-hour work, the body of Marvin Hemeyer was removed to the surface. Police found he shot himself with his 375-caliber pistol. Later, it was repeatedly emphasized in all media that Himeyer Marvin John was the only victim. It seems that the journalists tried to cite this fact as proof of his rare ingenuity and heroism.

But, as you know, there were people in the buildings just before the destruction. In addition, he fired at fuel tanks, and this could lead to large explosions and numerous casualties. He also made an attempt to fill up the wall in one of the buildings, near which there were two police officers.

After the lifeless body was pulled out of the cockpit, several rifles and a list of addresses of enterprises and buildings with the names of their owners were found in it. By the way, all destroyed property was insured and then restored as soon as possible. But the cement plant never recovered from the destruction, the owners felt that they needed to get rid of it and sold it.

Marvin Hemeyer is America's last hero. So the journalists dubbed him. Today in the United States there is a group of people who literally idolize him for his courage, intransigence and uncompromising struggle against a corrupt state system.

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 he was not initially offered a lot of money, 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 went to 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, moreover, 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 the members of the city council; 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 Chimeyer 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. They decided to cut Kildozer into many parts 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 has found a considerable number of admirers all over the world. He was called "America's last hero" and was used as a symbol of the individual's opposition to the 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 authorities' decision to expand the plant and revise the boundaries of his property with 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 village - 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, inconvenient area 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, which 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 selects your children, 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, satisfying the thirst for revenge, which lasted several tens of minutes, because the bulldozer was able to very quickly turn half the city into ruins, was the goal that Marvin had been pursuing for several years. Surely, he repeatedly imagined how the city would shudder from the lion's roar of the 400-horsepower Killdozer engine. How the pavements will tremble and the glass clink when the 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 Himeyer 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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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 activities 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).

Himeyer, a 52-year-old welder, 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.

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 man 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 pave another road, and even bought a decommissioned Komatsu D355A-3 bulldozer for this, having restored the engine on it in his workshop.

Marvin had a bulldozer of this brand

The city administration refused permission to build a new road. The bank found fault with the 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 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. ”), 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 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 (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 beforehand. 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 noses from behind their cars. None of the police officers received a scratch.

The pursuit

Sheriff's parking lot

Ruins of Cement Factory Administration Mountain Park Inc.

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 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 1.5 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).

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.

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 smart people wanted to put the bulldozer on a pedestal and make it a tourist attraction, but most insisted on melting it down. For the inhabitants 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:

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 to build a new road. The bank found fault with the 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 retail tax authority, fire department and sanitary inspection, which issued a $ 2,500 fine 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 12 mm 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). Using a 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 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 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 a fine, the city hall, the offices of the city council, fire brigade, a warehouse, several residential buildings that belonged to the mayor of the city. Dug down the editorial office of the local newspaper and the public library. In short, Marvin demolished everything that had anything to do with the 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 into it, 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 had no trouble shoving 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 ricochet - however, as the experience of quarrying shows, such bulldozers do not immediately pay attention even to a complete failure of the cooling system.

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 Hemeyer bulldozer, and then they made a hole in the armor for a long time, 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 gun, 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 attracted the approval of many residents of the United States and around the world. Marvin Hemeyer began to be called "the last American hero" who 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.