You’re in a small Vermont town, walking past the sheriff’s department, when you see something you can’t believe—a tractor rolling over police cruisers like they’re soda cans. Witness Rene Morris told NBC News it looked “like I was in a Monster Jam rally or something.” But this wasn’t a stunt show. Thirty-four-year-old Roger Pion was on a revenge rampage over marijuana charges. And the kicker? He left police with no way to chase him down.

I was born in Vermont and can testify that folks in my home state are built different. Normally, this manifests as resourceful back-to-landers and gold-hearted neighbors. But in the case of Roger Pion, things got a little sideways.

Farm tractor rampage in Orleans County Vermont

Pion was angry. Police had arrested him weeks earlier for marijuana possession and resisting arrest. His mother, Linda, said in an interview with My NBC 5, “It seemed like everywhere you went they [police] were there, and that discouraged him.” She claimed an earlier run-in left Pion bruised. “He went to get out and they grabbed him by the arm here and squeezed him so hard there were black and blue fingerprints.”

So Pion snapped. He grabbed his father’s farm tractor and drove straight to the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department. What happened next stunned the small town.

Deputies were inside enjoying the air conditioning and didn’t hear the destruction until it was over. Chief Deputy Philip Brooks told NBC News, “We came out and sure enough there was someone who had run over our cruisers with a tractor.”

The damage was catastrophic—seven marked cruisers and one unmarked personal car flattened. Sheriff Kirk Martin said, “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.”

With the fleet destroyed, officers couldn’t give chase. A deputy admitted to Mass Live, “We had nothing to chase him with.”

The aftermath of Roger Pion’s crime

Of course the Sheriff called in neighboring departments to help with the chase. And on a tractor, a quick getaway is out of the question. Pion was arrested a mile and a half away.

He faced charges including aggravated assault and unlawful mischief. But his sister, Laura Bergeron, defended him, saying, “My brother is a kindhearted person… He’ll give the shirt off his back to help somebody.”

He became a folk hero online, with supporters calling him a “martyr” and creating Facebook pages in his honor. In court, Pion was declared legally insane and avoided prosecution.

Pion is no hero, and he doesn’t represent Vermont’s gold-hearted spirit. But those values showed up anyway. Neighboring counties immediately sent replacement cruisers. Brooks confirmed to NBC News, “We’ve already had one county that’s dropped one off to us and we’ve got two others that are on the way.” That’s the Vermont I know—quick to lend a hand, even after a disaster.