The M60 Patton tank, over 55 tons of
armor-reinforced American firepower, meant to go head to head with Soviet tanks
in a winner-take-all battle for Europe. Yet years after the end of the Cold War, a Patton
tank would wage a different type of battle, as a deranged man takes an
American tank on a rampage through San Diego reminiscent of
something out of Grand Theft Auto. It's 6:30 pm on May 17th, 1995, and former US Army
tank driver Shawn Nelson drives his Chevrolet to the California Army National Guard Armory on
Mesa College Boulevard, directly outside of a neighborhood of San Diego. The tanks of
the California National Guard are kept in a constant state of readiness, prepared to deploy
on a moments notice to any battlefield across the Pacific- or to meet any invader of the US homeland
attempting to land on the California coast. Nelson knows the M60 well, having driven one for
two years during his military service from 1978 to 1980. Stationed in Germany, Nelson was part of
the American advance forces meant to go toe-to-toe with the Warsaw Pact and hold the line until
reinforcements from the homeland could arrive in Europe. The Patton was well suited to the task,
weighing in at 57 tons when combat-loaded and with armor up to ten inches thick in places. If there
was any tank that could enter, and survive, the slugfest that would have been World
War III in Europe, it was the Patton. By the time that Nelson snuck into that
California National Guard armory though, the M60's glory days were long over, having been
replaced by the much more advanced M1 Abrams. All existing M60s were slowly phased out
and scrapped, sold to foreign countries, or handed down to the national guard units
of various states. Thankfully for all, no M1 Abrams was available that fateful day, or
this tank rampage may have been truly unstoppable. Due to crews working late, the gate to the motor
pool holding several M60s was left wide open, and yet no one was around as Nelson parked his
car and then jogged over to the waiting tanks. Trying one, and then a second, Nelson was
unable to start the vehicles- but then he got lucky on the third one and the
55 ton Patton roared to life. Normally the tank requires a crew of 4 to
operate, and thankfully the ammunition for either the main gun or the machine guns on the
tank was not loaded and kept in a separate, locked building. As a one man crew though,
Nelson could still drive the vehicle, and he'd need no guns to cause untold
devastation across an unsuspecting San Diego. By now though a national guardsman has noticed
Nelson, and wisely decides that instead of trying to stop him alone, he'd call the police.
The operator on the other end is incredulous, who would have ever thought that a man
would steal a tank from the national guard- this was after all a time before Grand
Theft Auto. With police notified though, cruisers were immediately
dispatched in Nelson's direction. Moving at 30 miles an hour, the tank
heads into the San Diego suburbs, the giant rumbling machine upsetting the
peace and quiet of sleepy neighborhoods. The astonished civilians are
incredulous as the massive tank ramps up onto a parked vehicle and crushes
the automobile flat, without losing an ounce of acceleration. The tank keeps going,
ramping up on a whole row of parked cars, pancaking every single one of them and leaving
nothing but flattened glass and steel in its wake. By now the San Diego County Sheriff's
Department, the California Highway Patrol, and military police are all
pursuing Nelson in his tank, but all of them have one question in mind: how
in the world do we stop a vehicle designed to operate on a nuclear battlefield?! While law
enforcement digs for an answer, they also begin looking into Nelson's past in an attempt
to find a way to stop the rampaging madman. Even during his two years of service
with the US Army in 1978-1980, Nelson faced multiple disciplinary problems,
though none of which prevented him from being honorably discharged at the completion
of his two year service contract. Shortly after returning to the US, Nelson started
a plumbing business and became quite successful, settling down with his girlfriend, Suzy
Hellman. Eventually the two were married, and all seemed well for the happy
couple- but dark times were ahead. In 1988, Nelson's mother died, and four
years later his father would die as well. At around the time of his mother's death, the grieving Nelson began to experiment with
drugs and alcohol, settling on methamphetamine as his drug of choice. The normally
helpful and happy Nelson began a slow, dark descent into drug addiction and depression,
his life falling apart before his eyes. In 1990 Nelson was involved in a motorcycle
accident that left him with serious back and neck injuries. By now, Nelson's drug
addiction was severely affecting his behavior, and he attempted to walk out of
the hospital claiming he was not being treated properly. He went on to file a
malpractice suit that was thrown out of court, though Nelson was forced to repay the over
$6,000 bill his hospital stay had cost him. In pain, Nelson's abuse of alcohol
and methamphetamine only grew worse, and his wife finally divorced him. With his
business floundering due to his erratic behavior, the final nail in the coffin for his professional
life as a plumber came when his van and all his tools were stolen. Then, shortly after his
new girlfriend left him due to his drug usage. Nelson's methamphetamine abuse began
to spiral even more out of control, and friends were shocked to discover he had
dug a seventeen foot shaft in his backyard. Nelson claimed that he was digging for gold, and
even filed a claim with the county office stating his intention to mine the bedrock. Nothing
ever came out of that hole except for dirt. By now the bank was beginning foreclosure hearings
on his home, and Nelson's behavior was spiraling more and more out of control. Watching the footage
from the Oklahoma City bombings on tv one day, he remarked to his friend, “Oklahoma was good
stuff”. This would prove to be an ominous warning of things to come, but nobody took Shawn
Nelson's off-the-cuff comment seriously. Now, San Diego was suffering the
wrath of Shawn Nelson's tank rampage. He drove his tank straight through an
intersection, aiming straight for an old woman's house. The woman watched frozen in
shock as the tank came straight towards her, the one-floor house having no chance of stopping
the rampaging machine. Nelson however seemed to change his mind, and stopped the vehicle, backing
it up and driving it back on the road. He swiped a minivan with a mother and her teenage daughter
though, destroying the motor and miraculously leaving the woman and her daughter unharmed. A
few minutes later, Nelson drove his tank straight through a traffic light, toppling it and causing
it to get stuck on the turret of the vehicle. Now, the methamphetamine fueled madman
turned his sights on the freeway, where thousands of motorists would
be unable to escape his rampage. The police meanwhile were helpless
to stop Nelson and his tank, police cruisers forced to follow the tank at a
distance, with other cruisers leading the way up front and hoping to clear the way of people with
their flashing lights and loud sirens. Dumbstruck bystanders watched the mighty war machine rumble
by, thinking perhaps a movie was being filmed- until the tank would obliterate parked vehicles
in its path. This was no movie, it was real life, and though nobody had been hurt or killed yet,
if that tank got on the freeway the casualties could be immense- especially if it caught up
with rush hour traffic trapped in a standstill. The tank climbed an on-ramp, the police cruisers
still on its tail. Luckily the freeway was relatively free of traffic along this stretch of
San Diego, but closer to downtown was rush hour traffic, practically caught in a standstill. If
Nelson reached them, drivers would be trapped in their vehicles as the giant tank simply rolled
straight over them and crushed them to death. Vehicles managed to easily avoid the giant
tank, moving at only thirty miles per hour, and Nelson was growing frustrated.
He had no plan or agenda, merely to cause as much mayhem as possible
before the tank's fuel ran out. But here on the freeway he couldn't catch
up to the flow of traffic quickly enough, and then he decided on a plan. Nelson would smash
through the concrete divider of the freeway to continue his rampage on the other side, where the
speeding vehicles would be coming straight at him. With a lurch, the 55 ton tank rumbled towards the
concrete divider, smashing it to pieces as its front collided with the rebar-reinforced concrete.
This divider was designed to withstand the force of a tractor-trailer going sixty miles per hour,
but it shattered on contact with the steel war machine. Incredibly though, the shattered concrete
managed to wedge the tank's treads in an awkward position, momentarily stopping the lumbering
behemoth. Unable to gain traction, the tank struggled to continue its movement, and Nelson
began jerking it back and forth trying to free it. If he got free, nothing the police could
do would be able to stop the tank from threatening oncoming traffic. With drivers
completely unaware of what was ahead of them, they would be running straight at the steel
war machine at fifty or sixty miles an hour, only to be immediately flattened and
crushed to death. A call had already been placed with a local Marine reserve
unit for a Cobra attack helicopter, but it would take time for the chopper, which
was kept in storage and not ready for operations, to be fueled, prepped for flight, and armed
with an air-launched tank killer missile. With the tank stuck, four police
officers knew that if they were going to save countless lives, they needed to act now. Four police officers rushed out of their
own vehicles and bravely climbed atop the bucking and heaving war machine. One slip or
one jerk of the big machine would see them hurled from the tank and crushed to death.
Still, the officers continued their climb, and luckily for all involved one of them-
Marine Corp reservist Gunnery Sergeant Paul Patton, was a fellow tanker and
knew how to open the vehicle's hatch. Aiming his weapon down into the tank,
Patton ordered Nelson to shut off the machine and climb out, but Nelson ignored
him and continued to gun the engine. The tank was nearly free, there was little
time to act- and so Patton fired once, hitting Nelson in the shoulder from a
downward trajectory. The bullet pierced into Nelson's chest cavity and caused massive
bleeding- but the tank was at last silent. The four officers immediately pulled Nelson out of
the tank and began first aid. Luckily an ambulance had been following the rampage closely, ready
to respond to any wounded by Nelson's erratic tank driving. Within minutes Nelson was placed
in an ambulance and rushed to a nearby hospital, where lifesaving surgery was attempted.
Ultimately, Nelson would die of his injury, and while the police were criticized for
not using other means to subdue Nelson, most people agree that there was no realistic
option for stopping Nelson's rampage that wouldn't have further endangered lives.
If he had managed to get the tank unstuck, Nelson could've wreaked havoc in oncoming
traffic, killing who knows how many people. In the years since his death Nelson
was glorified as a folk hero of sorts, taking out his frustration at a broken
system on the society that let him down. However, Nelson's own brother and former
wife both have said that Nelson was not a hero with an agenda, he was simply an out
of control drug addict and nothing more. Now watch our video on another deranged madman,
Killdozer, or click this other video instead!
