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Wednesday, January 5, 2022

The Mad Farmer

     On July 3, 2012, police in Newport, Vermont, a town of 5,000 ten miles from the Canadian border, arrested Roger Pion for possession of marijuana. The Orleans County prosecutor also charged the 34-year-old farmer with resisting arrest. The next day, Pion posted his $15,000 bail and walked out of jail.

     A month later, on August 2, 1012, Roger Pion drove his parent's 15-ton farm tractor into town. He pulled the massive machine onto the Orleans County Sheriff's Office parking lot, and in monster truck derby fashion, drove over and crushed seven of the county's police cruisers. Deputies sitting at their desks yards away, due to the noise from their office air conditioning units, didn't hear Mr. Pion flattening more than half of the department's patrol car fleet.

     Stunned bystanders looked on as Pion, after driving his tractor on top of the row of police cars, headed out of town. Since farm tractors do not make good get-away-vehicles, an officer with the Newport Police Department, two miles out of town, pulled the car-crusher over. After a scuffle, the city officer took Pion into custody.

     When the monster tractor rolled off the pancaked police cars, it left behind $250,000 in property damage. The Orleans County prosecutor charged Mr. Pion with seven felony counts of unlawful mischief, one count of leaving the scene of an accident (this was no accident), and aggravated assault of a police officer. A magistrate set Pion's bond at $50,000. The Great Vermont Patrol Car Destroyer was housed in the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport.

     In October 2014, State's Attorney Alan Franklin and defense attorney Chandler Matson agreed that the police vehicle masher had been insane at the time he pancaked the cars. As a result, the mad farmer was not prosecuted for destroying a fleet of police vehicles and resisting arrest. 

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