Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
A Netflix documentary titled Tread revisits Marvin Heemeyer’s Killdozer rampage in Granby, Colorado, in 2004. According to Denver 7, Heemeyer, a muffler shop owner, using his modified Killdozer vehicle, went on a rampage in downtown Graby on June 4, 2004. He destroyed 13 buildings and the majority of the business district. He caused destruction worth millions of dollars because of a zoning dispute with town officials that had been going on for years. This dispute was regarding a construction permit for a concrete batch plant near his shop.
Netflix’s full-length documentary on Marvin Heemeyer’s Killdozer rampage consists of interviews conducted over several years. Reportedly, Tread’s writer and director Paul Solet told the outlet in a 2020 interview, “There’s sort of an implicit character question. Who would make that machine?” Solet added that the documentary is “from people whose livelihoods” Heemeyer destroyed that day. He said it is also about “those who loved Heemeyer the most and continue to support him.”
Did Marvin Heemeyer kill anyone during the Killdozer rampage?
Marvin Heemeyer did not kill anybody during his Killdozer rampage in Granby in June 2004. Denver 7 stated that despite Heemeyer’s shooting from the Killdozer while driving it on a “slow-motion rampage,” he did not kill anybody. Denver 7 reported that former SWAT commander Grant Whitus said, “His intent was certainly to maim and kill.” Whitus led the SWAT team as they responded to Granby to tackle the situation that day. Heemeyer destroyed multiple buildings and caused damages of more than $5 million.
The outlet stated that newspaper publisher Patrick Brower detailed Marvin Heemeyer’s Killdozer rampage about the incident. He also wrote a book on the incident titled Killdozer. Brower claimed it was Heemeyer’s attempt at getting back at the town over a dispute. He said, “[Heemeyer] vowed to get back at the people” he believed had wronged him.
Brower claimed the Killdozer incident was the culmination of several years of incidents. It began after he lost a property dispute with his neighbors over land near his muffler shop. He believed the town officials who refused to take his side and threw out his lawsuits, which upset him. Moreover, they fined him for not having a septic tank and a few other city code violations. Later, he wrote “Cowards” on a check to the city. The money was to cover the fines.
Marvin Heemeyer was “unstoppable and impregnable in that tank,” said Brower about the Killdozer rampage. He drove the modified vehicle for more than two hours. The slow-motion rampage destroyed a bank, the police station, a town hall, a newspaper office, a hardware store, and several other buildings. All buildings were intentional targets.
The incident concluded after Heemeyer crashed and killed himself after getting stuck as authorities began to close in. Marvin Heemeyer’s cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, reported Canon City Daily Record. The muffler shop owner had secretly built the Killdozer over several months before June 4, 2004.
Marvin Heeymeyer’s Killdozer rampage remains controversial as some support his actions while others condemn them, per CBS News. Tina Holley, a Granby resident, reflected on the incident 20 years later and believes the town “is so much more than” that one day. Holley stated that “everybody remembers us for” that one incident, and she doesn’t “like it at all.”
Holley added that she understands it’s “impossible to ignore the impression this event” had on the town people. She believes it still impacts the “current community.” Additionally, she thinks, “We were very fortunate that day that nobody but Mr. Heemeyer died.”
Marvin Heemeyer’s Killdozer documentary Tread premiered in 2019 and is now streaming on Netflix.
