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The APC story here and elseweb has many people bringing up Killdozer, almost fondly, like a folk hero.

The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

In what way is this admirable or heroic?

 feeder wrote:
The APC story here and elseweb has many people bringing up Killdozer, almost fondly, like a folk hero.

The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

In what way is this admirable or heroic?

Because, to summarize, the United States has a thing about idolizing criminals.

I've done it, without a doubt. We want to see what we want to believe. A majority of Americans want to see this guy as a folk hero because he took action against an unfair system. A every-man fighting against a corrupt system even though that every-man was initially wrong...but let's just focus on how he was kept down by those mean people in the local government.

Karma is a bitch isn't it?

That's why people like it. Plus the guy built a tank - that is pretty cool too.

 ProtoClone wrote:

 feeder wrote:
The APC story here and elseweb has many people bringing up Killdozer, almost fondly, like a folk hero.

The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

In what way is this admirable or heroic?

Because, to summarize, the United States has a thing about idolizing criminals.

I've done it, without a doubt. We want to see what we want to believe. A majority of Americans want to see this guy as a folk hero because he took action against an unfair system. A every-man fighting against a corrupt system even though that every-man was initially wrong...but let's just focus on how he was kept down by those mean people in the local government.

There is that, yeah. Not just the US, either. Rooting for the underdog is pretty common, Robin Hood, William Wallace, Ned Kelly. I guess I don't see this guy as much of a sympathetic figure.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Karma is a bitch isn't it?

The whole thing started when he tried to turn a $42,000 investment from a $250,000 sale to a $1M sale. I believe he started the chain of events in motion.

That's why people like it. .

That's the part that I don't get. Martin unequivocally lost. He took his own life, which if one is inclined to believe that sort of thing, is eternal damnation. His opponents suffered material damage for which they certainly were compensated.

He threw a giant temper tantrum and then committed suicide.

Plus the guy built a tank - that is pretty cool too

That part is pretty cool. I wish I had that kind of space to work in.

 feeder wrote:
The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

That is an interesting spin on the situation. The guy was hosed pretty hard by the local government. The wikipedia entry touches on this briefly:

In 2001, the zoning commission and the town's trustees approved the construction of a concrete batch plant. Heemeyer attempted to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful. For many years, Heemeyer had used the adjacent property as a way to get to his muffler shop. The plan for the concrete plant blocked that access. In addition to the frustration engendered by this dispute over access, Heemeyer was subsequently fined $2,500 by the Granby town council for various violations, including "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line" that had been disconnected during construction of the concrete plant.

So a city government builds a factory next to this guy's business cutting off the access route to his business and severing the sewer line. They ignored his appeal regarding the concrete factory's impact on his business and then fined him for not having a sewer connection which was directly a result of the concrete factory's construction. But yeah, "bad business deals" is why he went off.

Not saying this guy wasn't a nut. Anyone claiming god is influencing them is a fething lunatic, but he had a pretty legitimate grievance, tried to handle things the proper way, got hosed, so took some vigilante justice into his own hands.

As someone losing faith in society's institutions myself, I admire the pluck of the guy.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Karma is a bitch isn't it?

That's why people like it. Plus the guy built a tank - that is pretty cool too.

Pretty much. Screw over a person's livelihood and you are asking for trouble. Push someone hard enough and you get an ork-style tank running through your town. Plus the guy didn't kill anyone so, much like the San Diego tank chase from 20 years back, it is benign cathartic release for people to see someone snap, cause some property damage in a very exciting and outrageous way, with no real consequences in terms of loss of life.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:
The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

That is an interesting spin on the situation. The guy was hosed pretty hard by the local government. The wikipedia entry touches on this briefly:

In 2001, the zoning commission and the town's trustees approved the construction of a concrete batch plant. Heemeyer attempted to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful. For many years, Heemeyer had used the adjacent property as a way to get to his muffler shop. The plan for the concrete plant blocked that access. In addition to the frustration engendered by this dispute over access, Heemeyer was subsequently fined $2,500 by the Granby town council for various violations, including "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line" that had been disconnected during construction of the concrete plant.

So a city government builds a factory next to this guy's business cutting off the access route to his business and severing the sewer line. They ignored his appeal regarding the concrete factory's impact on his business and then fined him for not having a sewer connection which was directly a result of the concrete factory's construction. But yeah, "bad business deals" is why he went off.

He sold the land to build the plant in the first place.

 feeder wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:
The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

That is an interesting spin on the situation. The guy was hosed pretty hard by the local government. The wikipedia entry touches on this briefly:

In 2001, the zoning commission and the town's trustees approved the construction of a concrete batch plant. Heemeyer attempted to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful. For many years, Heemeyer had used the adjacent property as a way to get to his muffler shop. The plan for the concrete plant blocked that access. In addition to the frustration engendered by this dispute over access, Heemeyer was subsequently fined $2,500 by the Granby town council for various violations, including "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line" that had been disconnected during construction of the concrete plant.

So a city government builds a factory next to this guy's business cutting off the access route to his business and severing the sewer line. They ignored his appeal regarding the concrete factory's impact on his business and then fined him for not having a sewer connection which was directly a result of the concrete factory's construction. But yeah, "bad business deals" is why he went off.

He sold the land to build the plant in the first place.

Which is where things get murky.

wikipedia wrote:Some believed that this negotiation happened before the rezoning proposal was heard by the town council.

It is unclear from the news article listed on the wikipage, but perhaps he had second thoughts about selling the land once the zoning issues came up and it became clear his muffler business would be screwed?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 feeder wrote:
The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

That is an interesting spin on the situation. The guy was hosed pretty hard by the local government. The wikipedia entry touches on this briefly:

In 2001, the zoning commission and the town's trustees approved the construction of a concrete batch plant. Heemeyer attempted to appeal the decision but was unsuccessful. For many years, Heemeyer had used the adjacent property as a way to get to his muffler shop. The plan for the concrete plant blocked that access. In addition to the frustration engendered by this dispute over access, Heemeyer was subsequently fined $2,500 by the Granby town council for various violations, including "junk cars on the property and not being hooked up to the sewer line" that had been disconnected during construction of the concrete plant.

So a city government builds a factory next to this guy's business cutting off the access route to his business and severing the sewer line. They ignored his appeal regarding the concrete factory's impact on his business and then fined him for not having a sewer connection which was directly a result of the concrete factory's construction. But yeah, "bad business deals" is why he went off.

He sold the land to build the plant in the first place.

Which is where things get murky.

wikipedia wrote:Some believed that this negotiation happened before the rezoning proposal was heard by the town council.

It is unclear from the news article listed on the wikipage, but perhaps he had second thoughts about selling the land once the zoning issues came up and it became clear his muffler business would be screwed?

Ah, I see. I did not interpret that line like that. I thought the rezoning referred to the subdividing of his land in the first place.

 feeder wrote:
In what way is this admirable or heroic?

He definitely wasn't a hero by any metric: the only reason he didn't kill innocent people was sheer, dumb luck and not at all for lack of trying.

The fascination is that some part of people will always enjoy seeing stuff get destroyed. It's what sells tickets to disaster movies, it's why you go on rampages in GTA almost immediately, puts fans in the seats at monster truck car crashes, and so on.

That's before we get into the element of him essentially building a tank in his backyard that functionally included remote bulletproof cameras, pintle mount weapons, and composite armor. No way to make that not kind of awesome.


If even one person other than himself had died, then I think this story would be remembered differently, though.

Yeah don't get me wrong. This guy was crazy and certainly is no hero. I also have only seen the vet sites side of the story that really talk this guy up for being awesome. I had no idea he sold them the land to build the factory. IMO that kind of kills the "got wronged and snapped" story to "this guy made some bad decisions and decided to destroy things".

In the end though - I really like hearing stories about people building war machines and destroying things. A guilty pleasure I guess - and since he didn't kill anyone we can laugh about it.

To be fair to the guy, it seems like he could not have known that selling the land was a bad decision until after he had made that decision, and the local authorities do come across as jerks.
None of that justifies building an armoured monstrosity to destroy the town though... Despite the fact that it is totally awesome.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
To be fair to the guy, it seems like he could not have known that selling the land was a bad decision until after he had made that decision, and the local authorities do come across as jerks.
None of that justifies building an armoured monstrosity to destroy the town though... Despite the fact that it is totally awesome.

I had honestly forgotten about this story.

It sounds like it was ripped from the pages of a Silver Age Iron Man comic.

 feeder wrote:
The APC story here and elseweb has many people bringing up Killdozer, almost fondly, like a folk hero.

The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

In what way is this admirable or heroic?

I think its more of a "Falling Down" thing, not something most would actually do or approve of, but that everyone as probably fantasized about doing

I don't know of anybody who idealizes the guy as some moral pillar. He's not a hero. But it would be appropriate to call him legendary though.

On another level, it is somewhat tragic. He really did get screwed over pretty hardcore. So there is a sympathy angle there.

Never mind thought you were just talkiing about the APC story

I only heard about this incident after the fact on one of those "World's Craziest Videos" type shows. I remember them talking about how the police were actually calling the National Guard to possibly take him out with a missile from a helicopter before he got the machine stuck. I also wondered if that homemade armor would have stood up to rounds from an A-10 if the police had indeed had to call in an airstrike. BRRRRRT!

As to his motivations, yes he got a raw deal, but that does not in any way make it okay to destroy property and threaten people's lives. IIRC he had a pintle-mounted machine gun or something that luckily jammed or else he might have killed someone.

Aye; intent matters, and the fact this guy failed to kill anyone doesn't mean he wasn't trying to.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I only heard about this incident after the fact on one of those "World's Craziest Videos" type shows. I remember them talking about how the police were actually calling the National Guard to possibly take him out with a missile from a helicopter before he got the machine stuck. I also wondered if that homemade armor would have stood up to rounds from an A-10 if the police had indeed had to call in an airstrike. BRRRRRT!

As to his motivations, yes he got a raw deal, but that does not in any way make it okay to destroy property and threaten people's lives. IIRC he had a pintle-mounted machine gun or something that luckily jammed or else he might have killed someone.

Yeah, when other heavy machines, police unloading every weapon they had in the armoury at time and it proving immune to every weapon they had. A attack helicopter was being considered given they had to kill a tank.

He had some rifles set up with vision blocks, I thi k. One was a heavy like a. 50 and a lighter ones mounted to the machines flanks. It's camera where armoured behind inches of bullet proof glass, set in about a foot of concernte between heavy steel.

Its armour was bloody tough, it was definitely immune to small arms short of sustained heavy machine guns or anti tank weaponry.

Lol a A10 would of torn it apart. Those 30mm rounds would have eaten that armour for breakfast.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know of anybody who idealizes the guy as some moral pillar.

While I wouldn't go "moral pillar", on the anniversary I started seeing some memes and posts on the facebooks and other socials that definitely whitewashed the event in question - played up the element of a guy being screwed by the system and omitted all the parts he played in contributing to his own misfortune, as well as his attempts to kill some of the people present.

I just found the whole thing tragic. This guy's life had gone wrong to such an extent that he couldn't see any other way out other than to kill himself. Most people would have simply killed themselves, though, without trying to take people with them. It's still sad.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I just found the whole thing tragic. This guy's life had gone wrong to such an extent that he couldn't see any other way out other than to kill himself. Most people would have simply killed themselves, though, without trying to take people with them. It's still sad.

Instead he decided to take the town down with him.. While not what you would call a ideal citizen, or right, the level of thought and planning into his revenge is quite exceptional.

If people think they have no where to go, they will fight or flight. And he decided to fight.

 jhe90 wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I just found the whole thing tragic. This guy's life had gone wrong to such an extent that he couldn't see any other way out other than to kill himself. Most people would have simply killed themselves, though, without trying to take people with them. It's still sad.

Instead he decided to take the town down with him.. While not what you would call a ideal citizen, or right, the level of thought and planning into his revenge is quite exceptional.

If people think they have no where to go, they will fight or flight. And he decided to fight.

This is the part I find so sad. He lost his mind over material losses and the perception that he was being treated unfairly. He could have sold his remaining assets and moved in with his brother while he got back on his feet. But instead he went full super saiyan feth you and tried to 'lone wolf' murder suicide his way out.

I see a lot of minimising his actions. If we give a pass, even a partial pass, to this guy, ie, "well that's what happens sometimes when you get angry, you build a tank and try to murder suicide your town". It has an 'egging on' effect on other people in a similar situation.

The guy is basically a grown up version of a school shooter.

My honest take on the whole thing: Local government was a little prickish, as local governments tend to be. Killdozer man was a greedy donkey-cave that speculated on land, got a great return on an investment, and then through a tantrum when he realized he shot himself in the foot.


Literally the ONLY thing I give him sympathy for was that the city fined him for not having sewer connections because of someone else's actions.

Have any of you ever looked at a diagram of the properties in question? I did a few years back when this conversation last came up. Basically, this guy's muffler shop was at the end of a fairly rough dead-end roadway. In order to get there, on the street, you had to make a sharp turn to the right onto a side street, and then make an immediate left into his business. Annoying if you are in a car, total pain if you had a trailer or larger vehicle. That's why this guy was using the vacant lot across the street to just cut the corner and drive strait in.

He sold that property willingly, for a pretty good profit. What did he think was going to happen, they wouldn't develop it and allow him to keep using it? He could still get to his muffler shop, it was just annoying.

Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know of anybody who idealizes the guy as some moral pillar.

While I wouldn't go "moral pillar", on the anniversary I started seeing some memes and posts on the facebooks and other socials that definitely whitewashed the event in question - played up the element of a guy being screwed by the system and omitted all the parts he played in contributing to his own misfortune, as well as his attempts to kill some of the people present.

Inequality is still rising (and not getting better) and so is anger/resentment broadly directed at people or groups that are seen as "responsible" for the situation. It looks like the people in power haven't learned much from the 2008 crash so the disenfranchised and powerless look for heroes wherever they can to make memes or draw some sort of positive message out of it.

 feeder wrote:
The APC story here and elseweb has many people bringing up Killdozer, almost fondly, like a folk hero.

The guy spent a year and a half planning his spectacular temper tantrum and suicide, all over a series of bad business deals.

In what way is this admirable or heroic?

You’ll find communities all over the Internet idolizing rogues and vigilantes like Killdozer and Christopher Dorner. Their targets are usually not very sympathetic(Local city councils or police departments) on the best of days, and they’ll cling to whatever strings they can to make a new hero out of them.

Mario wrote:

Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know of anybody who idealizes the guy as some moral pillar.

While I wouldn't go "moral pillar", on the anniversary I started seeing some memes and posts on the facebooks and other socials that definitely whitewashed the event in question - played up the element of a guy being screwed by the system and omitted all the parts he played in contributing to his own misfortune, as well as his attempts to kill some of the people present.

Inequality is still rising (and not getting better) and so is anger/resentment broadly directed at people or groups that are seen as "responsible" for the situation. It looks like the people in power haven't learned much from the 2008 crash so the disenfranchised and powerless look for heroes wherever they can to make memes or draw some sort of positive message out of it.

Well said.

 feeder wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
I just found the whole thing tragic. This guy's life had gone wrong to such an extent that he couldn't see any other way out other than to kill himself. Most people would have simply killed themselves, though, without trying to take people with them. It's still sad.

Instead he decided to take the town down with him.. While not what you would call a ideal citizen, or right, the level of thought and planning into his revenge is quite exceptional.

If people think they have no where to go, they will fight or flight. And he decided to fight.

This is the part I find so sad. He lost his mind over material losses and the perception that he was being treated unfairly. He could have sold his remaining assets and moved in with his brother while he got back on his feet. But instead he went full super saiyan feth you and tried to 'lone wolf' murder suicide his way out.

Eh, a little bit of hindsight there, no? The guy was clearly mentally ill (god was supposedly telling him to do this) so you can't exactly expect him to behave in a rationale manner. That you lament he didn't sell his assets and move in with his brother, well, clearly whatever social support networks this guy had failed him and failed him hard. He wasn't in a healthy state of mind and he didn't have anyone around to get him the help he apparently needed, so while I am loathe to call this guy a victim (though he was a victim of mental health problems and got a raw deal by his local government), your statement seems very heavy in victim blaming.

 feeder wrote:
I see a lot of minimising his actions. If we give a pass, even a partial pass, to this guy, ie, "well that's what happens sometimes when you get angry, you build a tank and try to murder suicide your town". It has an 'egging on' effect on other people in a similar situation.

The people who feel disenfranchised and alienated by society aren't going to care about what "we" think, and they definitely will not give a damn about "our" disapproval of actions like those taken by Mr. Killdozer. And really, how often does this happen? We had the APC event this week, Killdozer 12 or so years ago, and the San Diego tank incident in the late 90's. Not exactly a trend if you ask me. If a lunatic is going to take an armored vehicle on a rampage every 10-15 years, I don't know if sucking our teeth and tsk-tsking people is going to do much to prevent those infrequent outbursts.

 feeder wrote:
The guy is basically a grown up version of a school shooter.

In the sense he wanted to terrorize people? Sure. But aside from that, he is nothing like a school shooter.

I can’t condone what he did. He screwed himself over with his poor decisions, blamed everyone else for it and then tried to kill them. That’s not heroic in any shape or form. But I have a...begrudging respect...for his audacity. Probably because I’m a spiteful and vindictive person too you see.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I can’t condone what he did. He screwed himself over with his poor decisions, blamed everyone else for it and then tried to kill them. That’s not heroic in any shape or form. But I have a...begrudging respect...for his audacity. Probably because I’m a spiteful and vindictive person too you see.

His motives where wrong but on a technical and engineering achievement. What he designed was pretty impressive.

Layered steel, 6 inch concrete and mixed layers of other materials to render a armour that was even proof against shaped charges, gunfire and ramming attack. It took 12 hours to cut through the plating with torches and so.

It had filtration, cameras behind bullet proof layers and cooling systems. Sealed behind thick armour, no real weak points unlike having to rely on view ports for sustained fire or tear gas dangers.

The aim was wrong. The machine was quite a feat of engineering. Had it not over heated and got stuck it would of needed a anti tank weapon to stop.

For all intents omit had durability of a world war battle tank.