KILLDOZER: How a Man Made His Own Tank | Tales From the Bottle

in 2004 a man would go on a rampage in granby colorado in a strange armored vehicle which would later become known as the killdozer great name by the way i think i'm going to give the same title to my little nissan despite continued attempts police were unable to stop him and the town was completely at his mercy well why would anybody do such a thing where did he get this contraption whatever happened to him his name was marvin hemer and he's become somewhat of a hero in some people's eyes a reasonable man driven to do unreasonable things which is just like me and the person walking in front of me is too slow and takes up the whole path and jesus [ __ ] christ you thought [ __ ] get out of my way marvin hemer moved to colorado sometime in the 90s or earlier which was somewhat strange as he was in his 40s he didn't have a wife or family he didn't even know anybody in the area but he was a hard worker soon setting up his own muffler repair shop in the area and people said he was a very affable person so he might be a little odd but so far i like him trouble began in 2001 when the zoning commission approved the construction of a concrete factory adjacent to marvin's shop for many years he mayor had used this route to get to his shop as it was really the only access road leading there construction of the plant would block this route however he mayor tried to appeal the zoning commission's decision but was denied he tried to petition the city with neighbors and friends but was once again unsuccessful the concrete plant was going to be built so marvin said all right all right you win i'll just have to find another way to my shop he petitioned to construct a new access road and he even bought all the heavy machinery so he could just do it all himself well guess what he was turned down again to add insult to injury the construction of the factory cut hemer's connection to the sewage line and granby town council fined him for not being hooked up to the sewer with his livelihood seemingly in ruins marvin felt he had no recourse he began planning his next move he would write notes and record audio tapes about his predicament i was always willing to be reasonable until i had to be unreasonable sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things he made a list of establishments and people that had cited against him and over the next year and a half he toiled on a secret project one of the machines he mayer had purchased to build the alternative access route to his shop was a bulldozer but by the time he mare was done with it it was a veritable tank the bulldozer was fitted with makeshift armor covering the cabin the engine and parts of the tracks this armor was over a foot thick in places consisting of a concrete mix fitted between sheets of tool steel this made the killdozer impervious to bullets and even the explosives to see out of this armor he mayer installed several cameras all around the cabin and hooked them up to two monitors he mounted on the inside the cameras were protected by 3-inch bulletproof plastic he even fitted in compressed air nozzles to blow dust off the lenses three gun ports were installed each fitted with a different weapon a 50 caliber anti-material rifle a 308 semi-automatic and a 22 long rifle each fitted with steel plates he mayer even installed onboard fans and an air conditioner to keep the driver cool under all the armor but there was one problem the armor was completely sealed tight and lowered onto the bulldozer via a crane that meant once the driver got in he wasn't coming back out now that's an extremely impressive thing to build one time i tried to put together a chair from ikea and i put the [ __ ] legs the wrong way around and he did all of this in a shed and that's not even the most unbelievable thing about all of this numerous people had actually visited marvin during the year and had been in his shed and not one of them said anything about the homemade tank sitting in the corner like what was going through their heads as they looked around that garage hmm nice tool box may get one of them for myself broken boiler there but it looks good oh expensive power drill might ask for a loan of that real old pair of boots there giant bulldozer fitted with composite armor tree gun ports on its own surveillance system lawnmower he may or believed that god had built him for this job and that it was god who clouded the judgment of the people who entered his shed now i like marvin but i think i'm going to have to take issue with the notion that god approved of him planning a [ __ ] rampage [Music] like it seems like a lot of effort on god's parts to cloud the judgment of every single person that walked into the shed instead of just making you see sense like um which one of those two things seems like the more logical option then again all of this really happened so what do i know on june the 4th 2004 marvin lured the armor onto the kildozer cabin one last time sealing himself inside began his rampage by tearing through the wall of his muffler shop and then the concrete plant before making his way into town for two hours he terrorized the town of granby he destroyed the town hall the office of a local newspaper that editorialized against him the home of a judge and many others every building he destroyed was owned by somebody that had previously wronged him in all he smashed up 13 buildings causing about seven million dollars worth in damages but it should be noted that nobody was harmed police made continuous attempts to stop the rampage local and state patrol including a swat team followed the killdozer everywhere it went firing shots at the cab with no effect they then tried to take out the cameras which again failed as they had the bulletproof shielding they climbed the board trying to figure out a way to put a bullet inside the beast a flashbang grenade was even dropped in the exhaust pipe but nothing they could do could stop it they even brought out a wheel tractor scraper to fight the machine but the killdozer is just pushed to the side at this point the police were running out of ideas the governor of colorado bill owens was considering authorizing the national guard to bring in an apache attack helicopter and blast the kill dozer with hellfire missiles which is a fairly serious escalation feels a bit like we're skipping some steps here sometimes i can't get the ring off my fat finger but i don't immediately break out the hacksaw this was eventually decided against due to the fact that firing missiles on a u.s town probably isn't a good idea and that the damage done would be significantly greater than anything he mayer could have hoped to achieve hemer was destroying a hardware store when he encountered a problem kildozer's radiator had been damaged somehow and the engine was leaking another problem a thread had dropped into the hardware store's basement meaning he was stuck the engine failed and swat soon surrounded the machine after about a minute they heard a single gunshot from inside the cab then the killdozer fell silent first used explosives to remove the armor but after three failed attempts they used an oxycetylene cutting torch and managed to get in inside they found the body of marvin hemer he had shot himself in the head with a handgun in 2005 it was announced that the killdozer would be taken apart for scrap metal with each individual piece being sent to a different scrap yard to prevent admirers from taking souvenirs and thus ends the tale of the killdozer [Music] hey everybody i hope you liked the video if you did then you know what to do i just wanted to talk about the channel for a little bit so recently we hit 1 000 views on a single video and i think we're coming up to 5 000 views total across the channel so that means the next milestone is 10 000 views which is mind-blowing i mean thanks we just hit like 50 subscribers and i think we're well on our way to 100 we'll have that soon enough hopefully everybody always says that you know your first 100 subscribers are you know it's the hardest to get so it'd be great to pass that milestone um if you're watching the video and you're not subscribed please consider subscribing because it really helps me out a lot and if you are subscribed uh thanks thanks a lot um stay subscribed because i have more stuff so stick around and over the next year and a half he toiled on a secret project well i can't believe he feels a kill toaster okay

Channel: Qxir

Views: 5,491,638

Keywords: killdozer, kill, dozer, marvin heemeyer, marvin john heemeyer, footage, story, explained, animated, funny, comedy, destroyed in seconds, discovery, discovery channel, rampage, killdozer rampage, tank tampage, tank, bulldozer, DIY, homemade, destroys, destruction, demolition

Id: Bo9Vu_X6lKw

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 16 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Delta_Assault]

Sounds like that town council really did fuck with the guy

[u/SomethingIntangible]

I like that this dude didn't kill anybody. He just did loads of damage financially. eye for an eye.

[u/CryptoBogan]

I work with heavy machinery and I would be lying if I said that doing this kind of thing to someone if they unfairly financially ruined me hadn't crossed my mind. Not unheard of for a subcontactor who hasn't been paid for a job they did to come back and rip up parts of it. Heard about a dozer operator who hadn't been paid for like 6 months worth of work, so he dropped his ripper and tore up a whole lotta brand new road. A water truck driver blocked off delivery of wind turbine components (was like a 20 man operation) and a lot of assaults and threats, but killdozer was on another level.

[u/tangoshukudai]

Honestly, if he didn't kill anyone and he was this royally fucked with to do something like this, I kinda feel the town deserved it.

[u/brookesrook]

It's like the real life version of Tank only the DIY version.

[u/esPhys]

Some more footage that most people haven't seen Kind of graphic though.

[u/nodstar22]

This guy has only 77 subs and that was nice content. I subbed. Thanks for posting.

[u/TreeBaron]

Truly, an American hero.

[u/Budpets]

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