Captain Killdozer

“Some people in the world you just don’t fuck with. Unfortunately you can’t always tell who those people are until it’s too late and such was the case with Marvin Heemeyer. He lived in a little town in Colorado with a population of about 500. He was a welder and owned a muffler repair shop and, presumably for a while, he was a totally non-sinister individual who never even considered doing anything crazy like building a massive, nearly indestructible machine of terror.

For a while.

Then, Heemeyer wound up in a dispute over his land with a cement manufacturing plant. He leased his business to someone else and sold his property while the new owners gave him six months to vacate. It was during that six months that Heemeyer built a death machine, a Komatsu D335A bulldozer outfitted with armor plating over the cabin and engine.

The armor in some places was over a foot thick and had concrete between sheets of steel, making it pretty much unstoppable. The tank was also outfitted with onboard cameras and monitors in the cabin so Heemeyer could see where he was going. The inside was made nearly airtight to resist a potential gas attack and had air conditioning, food, water and life support. Once he got in Heemeyer had no plans to actually leave the bulldozer.

Outside, the bulldozer had .50 caliber semi-automatic rifle mounted on the back, and three other semi-automatics mounted elsewhere. Basically, this was a machine designed to make everyone in his town of 500 take one massive, synchronized fear shit the moment it rolled out of his workshop.

Heemeyer took his machine of insanity out for a spin on June 2, 2004 by crashing it through the wall of his workshop. He then plowed through the concrete plant, the town hall, the local newspaper, a judge’s house, a hardware store owned by a guy who had pissed him off, and seven other buildings, causing about $7 million in damages.

The bulldozer, which came to be known as the Killdozer since that really is the only appropriate name for it, was hit with over 200 rounds of ammunition and three small explosions that barely left a scratch on it.

Eventually the Killdozer got stuck in a basement and the engine failed. A single shot was heard in the cabin. While Heemeyer took the easy way out, and it still took authorities twelve hours to cut their way into the machine. Surprisingly, Heemeyer had not rigged the dozer to then self-destruct and destroy the entire town.”

~ ~ ~ ~

http://www.cracked.com/article_16611_5-real-world-criminals-who-were-certified-super-villains.html

Going Undercover at Impact House

Going Undercover at Impact House
Hardcore recovery
By Mark Groubert
Published on June 25, 2008 at 5:10pm

“Lift your nut sack.”

I hope I never hear this phrase again.

Popeye, a 50-year-old, cornrowed black dude wearing white surgical gloves, is now pointing out what to look for to a concerned 20-something kid named Manny. I am their anatomical test dummy. I stand stark naked in a small shower room at Impact Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center in Pasadena. It’s the most hardcore rehab in town, they say. I am quickly finding out why.

“Now turn around, bend over, and spread ‘em,” barks my anal examiner. Manny gives me two paper towels to stand on while Popeye does his examining. Manny looks on like a protégé admiring his mentor. Even I, a pretty damn good extrovert, cannot come up with any small talk.

Also read Addiction: Buying the Cure at Passages Malibu and Rehab or Bust: A Guide to L.A.’s Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers by Mark Groubert

For the record, only Jim Stilwell, the legendary executive director of Impact, knows I am here undercover. When I first suggested the idea to Stilwell, a burly 60-ish biker type with a walrus mustache, I had to drop a bunch of names to widen his comfort zone. But to his credit, the savvy ex-junkie quickly got it. He had nothing to hide. According to Stilwell, everything would be standard operating procedure. I would be processed as a regular resident and treated as such for the duration of my stay. No employee or patient would know why I was there.

After an hour’s worth of paperwork, I am led into the main yard of the 130-bed facility. I have never been a patient in a rehab, and it’s like walking into another world. Some really hard-looking men (and women) chain-smoke on the outside patio. There is no swimming pool here, no equine therapy or “talking sticks.” There are carrots but no carrot juice.

I am given the 21-page Residential Client General Rules. A young gap-toothed kid named Michael takes me into a tiny, empty office to go over them page by page. It takes an hour.

There are many, many rules. Most are harsh, some are weird: No sunglasses, no tattoo paraphernalia and no haircutting articles. Portable TVs are allowed in rooms if the resident is Third Phase. Second Phase residents may have radios. No radios or TVs for First Phase residents. It all seems very foreign. Very cultish. Very prisonlike.

After the examination, I’m finally turned over to my impatient “daddy” — someone who shadows your every move for the first few days. You are his “baby.” In fact, everyone calls you baby. Not in the Sinatra way but in the infant way. It is all very humiliating. This is by design.

My daddy is a 50-year-old Latin gangbanger named Lorenzo, who did 21 years in prison for various infractions, one of them beating a man nearly to death with a pipe for refusing to pay his rent on some property Lorenzo owned. Lorenzo was a professional dope slinger. He also put in custom-made windows. He tells me he had seven years clean, when he “got busy and stopped going to N.A. meetings.”

In Impact for the past six months, he had worked his way up to Phase 3, the highest at this facility, when he was inexplicably de-phased back to square one. As he told me his crime/addiction/recovery story in the tiny cubicle that was his room, his eyes moistened. He took pride in Phase 3. He couldn’t fathom what he had done to deserve this “demotion.”

“I need to keep these in my pockets,” he mumbles, gesturing to his fists. He is a tightly wound guy. Very rarely smiles. When he does, it seems forced. Like someone is watching, and he has to do it. He is a good man. He wants it bad. I hope he makes it.

Lorenzo passes me an additional set of handwritten rules, headlined: “Getting Your Wings.” (Getting your wings is Impact-speak for shedding your Daddy.) I read the forbidden”Five F’s”:

1. Fighting

2. Fucking

3. Fixing

4. Flirting

5. Fruiting

The first one, I quickly get. No fighting. Easy. The third rule, no fixing. I can see that. Numbers two and four, fucking and flirting — these are really, really frowned upon. (As we walk through the woman’s section, I am instructed to yell, “Man walking here,” which I do rather meekly. I’m so terrified that I keep my eyes averted and my head down.) But number five? Fruiting? What is fruiting? Is it like fisting but with a papaya?

I would later learn from John Albert, who spent 18 months in Impact and ended up working on its staff from 1985 to 1987, that “it all started with [Epitaph Records founder and Bad Religion guitarist] Brett Gurewitz. He would get his dealer to throw oranges loaded with dope in there, then he would sit up at night and do speedballs.”
This goes on for 4 pages heres the link
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-06-26/news … -recovery/

Free Marijuana! (Movie) November 13 – Chicago

Source

With a couple of endless wars abroad to discuss, a defenestration-inspiring economy freaking us out and so many dreamboaty candidates and First Spouses to drool over, the War on Drugs — arguably the nation’s longest endless war ever — didn’t receive much spotlight time this election season. But while we were hearing about Sarah Palin’s fancywear and debating the long-ago bombing habits of Bill Ayers, tens of thousands of people ended up spending part of the campaign behind bars for committing nonviolent drug offenses. According to NORML, in 2007 arrests for marijuana violations alone reached 872,721 – about 100 people per hour, an all-time high (no pun intended). Expect 2008 stats to surpass that figure. Oh, and almost 90% of those 2007 arrests were for possession only. “Cha-ching!” says Mr. Cash Register to Mr. Prison-Industrial Complex.

Eager to draw attention to the government’s continuing and costly obsession with persecuting doobie-doers, Youngstown, OH-based John Holowach set about making and directing HIGH: The True Tale of American Marijuana, which explores the history and impact of our War on Drugs. Tonight HIGH premieres at Columbia College Chicago’s Film Row Cinema, 1109 S. Wabash (at 11th St.) at 7:30 p.m. The film will also be released on November 18 on DVD nationwide on Amazon, Netflix, Hollywood Video and other independent chains. Recently we spoke with Holowach about his film.

Chicagoist: What led you to focus on the War on Drugs as a documentary subject? Was it something you experienced or learned about around the time you started working on the film two-and-a-half years ago?

John Holowach: Actually, it was long before that — when I was in high school. I may not have wanted to make a movie then, but my opinion of the War on Drugs changed during that period. I took part in a debate class in which the chosen topic was marijuana legalization. Liking a challenge, I took the affirmative position, and took to the task of beating my opponent. I figured it would be quite difficult to argue that such a supposedly dangerous drug should be legalized, but it really wasn’t. Science was with me. Public policy experiments in other countries were with me as well. The government, which was supposed to tell me the truth, lied to me. When I discovered what a sham the entire thing was, it crumbled in front of me, and I set about knocking down the other walls with friends and family. Soon, pretty much everyone I knew was agreeing with my position, because I just overwhelmed them with the facts.

Oh, and I won the debate.

C: How is this documentary different from other films that explore the War on Drugs — for instance, Kevin Booth’s American Drug War?

JH: I think it’s really great that there are more serious examinations of the War on Drugs coming out, like Booth’s film — which I have yet to see, unfortunately. Sadly, there are still a lot of “stoner docs” out there, which really only talk for an hour about how great pot is and how hemp jeans are going to save the planet, followed by ten minutes of flashing colored lights and pulsing music. My film is nowhere near that. It’s thoroughly researched, takes the subject matter seriously, and means to help people see what wasn’t there before.

This isn’t to say it’s dry. As with life, you have to have a sense of humor. Sometimes laughing is the only thing you can do, in fact. Just ask some of the pain patients from the film — the ones you still can, anyway.

C: You emphasize your use of scientific studies and government survey data in conducting your research. Did you have any experts help you? Who were they? How did you cross paths?

JH: Research abounds through the Internets. And the work of the people such as economist Jeffrey Miron, whom I interviewed for the film, was invaluable. I really owe a debt to everyone who has produced a paper about drugs over the past 100 years. I must especially give thanks to the many government commissions which were set up by both the American and Canadian governments to study pot, none of which recommended keeping it illegal (which is, of course, why they were ignored).

C: How did you turn your “huge database of information” into an argument that could be presented in a 90-minute film?

JH: I didn’t at first. Originally, the film was three hours long. When I realized that this was untenable, I decided to really focus on the important points: What was extraneous? What was interesting but didn’t really add to the overall message of the film? It took quite a while for me (with the help of my producer and some editors) to trim it down to the 90-minute core you see today. Overall it’s a better film because of it.

C: What’s something that ended up on the cutting floor that you wish hadn’t?

JH: The segment with Straight Inc. included an addendum about one of the main funders and co-founders of the program, a mall magnate named Mel Sembler, whose power and influence in Washington got him assigned as an ambassador to Italy, and made him the only ambassador in history to have an embassy building named after him.

Unfortunately, it seemed to drift a little far from the overall theme of the film, and ended up on the cutting room floor.

What do you think of Cindy McCain getting a break from the feds in the 1990s for her own drug-related indiscretions?

C: I’m glad she got the help she needed, and I’m glad she didn’t suffer jail for her addiction, but why should she be the only one?

JH: It’s par for the course. Those in power always go, “Do as I say, not as I do.” There are countless examples of children and spouses of politicians and policymakers getting a free pass just because of the influence their parents or partners have. The War on Drugs, and the legal system engulfing it, is one of the most corrupt enterprises in existence today. As I said in the film, an FBI study found that half of all police corruption cases involved drugs. Why? Because it’s the easiest system to abuse.
I guess justice isn’t “above the influence,” is it?

C: How did you fund your film?

JH: My producer Bob Schubring was the source of funding for the entire venture. A longtime opponent of the War on Drugs, he responded to a posting about it I made on IMDb Pro and we began our production relationship from there. I owe this film and my career to him.
My distributor Terra Entertainment, who pulled me from starving artist status to a-bit-hungry artist status, also deserves a great deal of credit for distributing a film that so many others were afraid to touch.

C: Whose story do you think is most tragic?

JH: Dr. Paul Heberle and his pain patients, most certainly. He lost a year of his life, his house, his practice, and went a $250,000 in debt in legal expenses fighting ridiculous charges [for over-prescribing controlled substances; Heberle apparently was again arrested this week on new charges]. And who suffered besides? His patients. All for nothing.

I’ll repeat that: for nothing.

About a year after I completed the film, an older cut was being screened at Ohio State, and I invited them to come over from Pennsylvania to watch. So the lot of them piled into vans and drove. One of the patients I interviewed was on new medication –- an anti-depressant. Those are sometimes prescribed because they aren’t regulated like opioid drugs, but they have similar pain-relieving effects. The downside is that she was completely out of it, acting drugged-up and like she was only half-there. It was sad and made me feel miserable that she couldn’t just be on the medication that helped her.

The government measures success in how many people are injecting, smoking, snorting, or popping drugs. Forget if more people are dying, more people are suffering, or more people are losing their sense of self and in intractable pain because “drugs are bad, m’kay?”

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do know one thing: We need less death and less suffering — not more — but that’s all the so-called War on Drugs brings. We can afford to be cautious. What we can’t afford is to be so narrow-minded and closed off to any possibility of changing the system that we resign ourselves to “the devil you know.”

I’m tired of the devil we know, and I think most everyone else is, too.

I had no idea!

I had a friend that lived close by the rebekah school/roloff compound and we never knew what went on in there. We had always joked that it was an insane asylum (no offence) but today driving by the place its just an abandoned looking prison. My friends older brother told us once about a guy that had escaped, he was in front of his house and saw someone running. He yelled out to the guy and he just stopped. He asked if he was ok, the guy was cut up pretty bad. My friends brother knew right then that he was escaping, I beleieve he said it was 1983 or 84. He said he genuienly felt sorry for the guy, gave him some water and smokes. He said the guy was blank,

“Please, never let them find me. They will lock me up!”

Jay didnt know what to do. It was 4 miles to town and the chilling voice the guy had he didnt want to take him back. The guy didnt know how to get ahold of his parents. He told Jay about when they made him run barefoot through brush as punishment. Jay gave the guy a change of clothes, a shower to wash in and some cash. Jay was obviously touched, trying to pursuade the guy to goto the police. The guy had said that his parents sent him there because he got busted for pot and a DUI. Jay gave the guy a ride the next morning to the bus station were the guy got on a bus to dallas where his parents were at. I sincerely hope that he got to his parents.

Today that place is a ghost town, you will see people over there but maybe 2 or 3 cars and the gate is wide open. The place scared me, I am 23 now and am glad to have never experienced such a place. I was doing a search on the internet and this forum was one of the first sites. Obviously, there is more bad stories about roloff homes than good stories.

Rumor does have it, that they will reopen soon though…

This actually happened

FADE IN:

EXT. DRIVEWAY PATHWAY FAMILY CENTER, OHIO EVENING

ANGLE ON:

EXT. DRIVEWAY PATHWAY FAMILY CENTER, OHIO EVENING

POV PROTESTER NUMBER ONE FEMALE

We see a gold-like colored compact 4 door sedan car coming up the driveway towards Branch Hill- Guinea Pike. An Adult person is driving the passenger vehicle with three minors in the back seat. Three children are seen in the back seat of the car writing in confession journals, noticing one boy on the back left side writing something furiously.
CUT TO:

EXT. ACROSS THE DRIVEWAY PATHWAY FAMILY CENTER, OHIO EVENING

ANGLE ON:

POV PROTESTER NUMBER TWO FEMALE

She is facing inward looking down the driveway, and watches a car PULL UP the driveway towards her and Branch Hill- Guinea Pike. The car is a metallic gold in color. In the back of the car she notices a boy with sandy blonde hair on the left hand side in the back seat wiggling about and turns around quickly.