Police report that a man drove a tractor over eight police vehicles on Thursday. They estimate the damage at about $250,000.
(BIENTS)The man was allegedly driving a farm tractor that he used to run over eight vehicles in the parking lot of a Vermont police station. Police officials claim that this was in an apparent revenge scheme.
Police have pinned the vandalism on Roger Pion, 34, of Newport.
The incident took place at the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department in Derby, around 12:40 p.m.
“We came out and sure enough there was someone who had run over our cruisers with a tractor,” Chief Dep. Philip Brooks of the Orleans County Sheriff’s Dept. said in an interview with local WCAX.
Officers claim that “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,” Sheriff Kirk Martin stated to the Associated Press.
How did he get away with it – at least for a little while?
Police claim that because he crushed all of their vehicles, they were unable to pursue Pion after he drove away in the tractor.
Some of its newest vehicles were only four months old, according to cops. They say that this constituted the destruction of the majority of their vehicles.
“It felt like I was in a Monster Jam rally or something,” one eye-witness, Rene Morris told local WCAX. “I just couldn’t believe it. He’s backing up, going over it, turns around, makes his way to the other vehicles smashes those up, did his business and headed right down Route 5.”
Pion had recently been arrested and charged for possession of marijuana.
The damage is said to be around $250,000, according to police, but no one was injured.
“We have other county sheriff’s departments who are offering cruisers to us,” Brooks explained. “We’ve already had one county that’s dropped one off to us and we’ve got two others that are on the way.”
