Free Republic

Wednesday, June 4, was the 21st anniversary on the bulldozer attack in Granby. The attack was carried out by Marvin Heemeyer, a Granby business owner, in armored Komatsu D355A bulldozer. Several buildings were damaged in the rampage, including the Sky-Hi News office, a bank, a hardware store, a concrete company, a utility service center, the town hall, the police department, and a former mayor’s home. He targeted those who he felt had dealt him an injustice, the crux of which was a zoning dispute. The rampage lasted two hours and seven minutes, ending when the bulldozer got stuck attempting to...

At about 5:30 a.m., nearly two hours before sunrise in Garland, Maine, a suspect stole a Komatsu front end loader from a nearby gravel pit. The suspect then used the front end loader to attack a nearby home with people inside. The machine caused significant damage to vehicles parked in the driveway in an apparent attempt to force entry into the house. The sheriff’s officer reports residents exited the house and fired shots at the driver, wounding him and forcing his retreat.Here is the report from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office:Gunshots were fired during an incident involving a stolen front-end...

Japan has grounded its F-15 fighters for the second time in three months after a fuel tank and parts of a mock missile fell off a jet on a training mission, officials said Saturday. Japan Air Self-Defense Force officials said that the flight suspension involves all missions except emergency scrambles and will last until the safety of Japan's 202 F-15 fighters has been confirmed. No one was injured in Friday's incident near Komatsu base in western Japan and the pilot landed safely. In July, Japan's F-15s were grounded after one of the jets crashed into the East China Sea. The...