Rampage

In May 1995, the San Diego area was witness to one of the weirdest criminal activities in recent memory. An unemployed plumber named Shawn Nelson stole a tank from a National Guard compound and drove it wildly through the streets of the suburb of Clairemont, running down light posts, fire hydrants and parked vehicles (but, thankfully, not any people). Nelson gave the police a lengthy chase before he got the tank stuck on a highway divider. The police surrounded the immobilized tank, pried it open with bolt cutters and ordered Nelson to come out. When Nelson refused, the police opened a fatal volley of gunfire into the tank.Shawn Nelson was only 35 when he was killed, yet his brief life was riddled with considerable problems. An Army veteran who left the service to become a plumber, Nelson fell into a severe drug and alcohol habit. He also became obsessed with the notion that his backyard was home to a gold mine, and the surplus of his time became devoted to digging a mineshaft in search of the buried treasure. (The film estimates the shaft went either 17 or 25 feet into the ground--no one seems to have an accurate measurement.) Nelson's pre-occupation with his gold hunt led him to file for a mineral rights permit with the municipal government.

Unfortunately, Nelson's numerous demons eventually overpowered him. Physically and financially bankrupt, facing a foreclosure on his mortgage and unable to pay for his various addictions, Nelson planned to make one final statement against a world which he felt betrayed him. Recalling his Army training and remembering the National Guard had a compound in his neighborhood, Nelson stole the tank and went on his destructive joyride. Guys Who Steal Big Vehicles And Go Nuts