Vermont farmer crushed cop cars with tractor, police say

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/08/vermont_farmer_crushed_cop_car.html ^ | 8/2/12 | Dave Gram

[cotton1706]

Working in a stout former bank building with windows closed and air conditioners humming, Orleans County, Vt., sheriff's deputies didn't know what was happening in their parking lot until a neighbor called 911. A man on a big farm tractor, angry about his recent arrest for resisting arrest and marijuana possession, was rolling across their vehicles -- five marked cruisers, one unmarked car and a transport van. By the time they ran outside, the tractor was down the driveway and out onto the road.

Thursday afternoon's incident ended when city police in Newport, the county seat of the northern Vermont county, caught up with Roger Pion, 34, a short distance away.

No one was injured. At least two deputies had gone inside a few moments before after washing their vehicles, officials said.

"Nobody was hurt. That's the thing everybody's got to cherish," said Sheriff Kirk Martin.

Vermont State Police said in a statement that Pion would face seven counts of felony unlawful mischief, one count of misdemeanor unlawful mischief, one count aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, one count of gross negligent operation, and one count of leaving the scene of an accident.

Pion was being held at the Northern State Correctional Center in Newport on $15,000 bail.

Sheriffs said they did not know if Pion had a lawyer. A phone number for him could not be located.

Martin estimated damage to the vehicles at more than $300,000; state police put it at more than $250,000.

Not only were their roofs and hoods caved in, but "the radios are ruined, the radar detectors, the cages in the cars ... We're going to have to get the jaws of life up here to pry the trunks open and see about the rifles and shotguns," Martin said.

[Ken H]

It’s too bad that one of the police officers wasn’t in the 2nd or 3rd squad car and saw the tractor coming at him off the other cars, I would love for this story to end the way it did with the Muslim on a bulldozer in Jerusalem awhile back....you know with a police officer climbing up the tractor and emptying his sidearm pistol into the a$$hole’s cranium.

I'll be fondly thinking about you and your buddies when austerity hits and your pensions and job prospects go into the toilet.

[mangonc2]

Sounds like an American hero to me! How many of us have the guts to stand up to our oppressors?

[Altariel]

You wish one of the police officers had been crushed by the tractor to “justify” police retaliation?

Nice. Really nice. A rather “liberal” justification.