Okay, so, basically the popular myth about this guy is that he was just a small business owner who was being bullied by the city and a big cement company. But the truth is significantly less flattering.
The cement company that supposedly cut his muffler shop off? That never happened. They were buying land from Heemeyer (Killdozer Guy), then Heemeyer started demanding a higher price for the land. They were going back and forth on this for a long time; basically if the cement company agreed to a higher price, Heemeyer would demand an even higher one, and they went in circles about it.
Killdozer Guy’s main dispute with the city was over poop. His muffler shop was not connected to the city sewer or a septic tank. Instead, Heemeyer had simply buried an old cement mixer off the back of the truck on his property and pumped his sewage into that, instead. The problem with a cement mixer instead of a septic tank is that it does not separate water from waste, it just… collects it all. This is against code, it’s unsafe, and the city ordered him to properly dispose of his poop.
Well, Heemeyer didn’t want to go through the expense of proper sewerage. He asked the city if they would let him connect to the city sewer system, and the city agreed. But they wouldn’t pay for the sewage hookup line on his property, he’d have to pay that cost himself. (This is pretty standard). Heemeyer refused unless the city paid for the whole thing, and of course did not build a proper septic tank system either. He continued pooping into a cement mixer and bragging to friends that he got away with it for the better part of a decade, until the city started stopped being so lenient and started taking steps to fine him. Meanwhile, after over a decade of shitwater, the cement mixer started overflowing.
Killdozer guy’s solution? Pump his untreated, raw sewage directly into a creek behind his property.
It’s worth mentioning that Heemeyer was not financially ruined by either dispute. He was quite wealthy from having run and sold other muffler shops, and access to his current shop had never been cut off. He was basically just a rich asshole who felt that everyone was out to get him, including the Catholic church, because the local pastor had opposed his gambling legalization campaign, and the local newspaper, because they published an editorial that was unfavorable to him.
After all, you can’t afford a giant fuck-off bulldozer and the materials needed to turn it into a “killdozer,” let alone all the guns (including a Barrett M82 which usually goes for around $10,000) if you’re a poor working man ruined by small town corruption. In short, he was a self-entitled nutcase.
Now, the popular narrative is that he never hurt anyone and only went after those who had wronged him. This is only partially true, and it’s entirely by accident. He fired his guns and tried to blow up transformers and propane tanks with them, he fired at the operator of the wheel tractor-scraper that tried to stop him and cops that he could see trying to stop him; and the library he rammed was full of people including a children’s class, and so on. Along the way he even tried to do favors for friends, like flattening sidewalk trees planted in front of a restaurant that the owner blamed for a downturn in business.
Oh, and this wasn’t even a kamikaze run as the viral post implies; Heemeyer had a hatch, it just took investigators forever to find it after the fact, since the thing was so thoroughly covered in rubble.
And that’s more or less how a horrible poop goblin became a libertarian folk hero.