Dr. Dabbs – Grand Theft Armor: The San Diego Tank Fiasco

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

In what seems a familiar refrain, Shawn Timothy Nelson never was quite right. Born on 21 August 1959, Shawn was the second of Fred and Betty Nelson’s three boys. He attended James Madison High School in San Diego.

In 1978, Shawn enlisted in the US Army. After his training was complete, he was posted to Germany as an armor crewman. Two years later he separated from the military with an honorable discharge for “multifaceted disciplinary problems.”

The vast majority of the junior soldiers with whom I served were solid, hard-charging young studs. They were drawn to military service out of a desire to give back, a lust for adventure, or a need to earn money for college. However, a few of them just weren’t wired correctly. Shawn Nelson seems to have fallen into that category.

Once he left the military, Shawn trained to become a plumber. After he married Suzy Hellman in 1984, Shawn started his own plumbing business. By all accounts he was fairly successful. At some point everybody needs a plumber.

An Interesting Piece of Humanity

Shawn knew how to exercise the US legal system. He got into a fight with a hospital security guard in 1990 and subsequently sued the hospital. His mom died at the same hospital the following year, and he sued them again for that. In 1993 all of his cumulative legal assaults were consolidated and promptly dismissed. This experience left him bitter and angry.

Shawn and his wife actually lived in Clairemont, California, a subordinate community within San Diego proper. His weird behavior earned him no small amount of local notoriety. Nelson frequently cut his grass in the middle of the night, and he eventually excavated a twenty-foot hole in his backyard searching for gold. By all accounts his efforts bore no fruit. His property was cluttered with mechanical detritus and refuse. The cops responded to his home nine times in 1994-1995. These calls ranged from allegations of domestic violence to a claim that his work van had been stolen. Throughout it all, his neighbors knew of him but no one actually knew him.

Shawn Nelson also struggled with addiction. He mixed alcohol and methamphetamines regularly, causing his behavior to become more and more erratic. In 1991 Suzy moved out.

In June of 1994, someone stole Nelson’s van with all his plumbing tools. Now deprived of the means to do his job, his business cratered. Along the way, he had a motorcycle accident and suffered a painful spinal injury. By 1995 he was unemployed.

Now unable to pay his bills, the bank foreclosed on his house and the utility companies cut him off. He was finally served with an eviction notice. By this time he had found a new girlfriend, but she saw the writing on the wall and left as well. Nelson began alluding to suicide. The man was clearly at the end of his rope.

I’ve been down on my luck before–most all of us have–though I cannot say I have ever sunk quite as low as Shawn Nelson did. Of course, I never dug a twenty-foot hole in my backyard looking for gold, either. In response to such sordid circumstances, some turn to God, while others might seek out government assistance. By contrast, Shawn Timothy Nelson just went insane.

The Army National Guard

The Army National Guard answers to the Governors of the individual states. In times of crisis, these citizen soldiers can be activated to deal with civil unrest or national disasters. Upon the orders of the President, they can be federalized for national service as well. The National Guard makes up 14.8% of America’s total military force.

Back when I was young and dinosaurs roamed the plains, the National Guard was legit one weekend a month and two weeks each summer. It was a great way to make money for college without much risk of deploying someplace to get shot. Not so anymore. After 9/11 we got our money’s worth out of those guys. A good friend with whom I was commissioned commanded in combat at the company, battalion, and brigade levels as a National Guard officer. As you might imagine, he has an exceptionally long-suffering wife.

The National Guard typically trains on the same gear to the same technical standards as their active duty counterparts. Sometimes that works out better than other times, but Guard guys can indeed do some pretty high-speed stuff. In many cases, local National Guard armories will maintain small numbers of combat vehicles onsite for training purposes. I also suppose they could roll out the local Bradley or M1 Abrams in response to civil unrest or something similarly horrible, though I have never heard of that actually happening. 

In my home state of Mississippi, our National Guard includes Armor, Artillery, Aviation, Engineers, Maintenance, Quartermaster, JAG, and Special Forces units. We even have an Army band. That’s a whole lot of heavily armed rednecks. Don’t screw with us. I’m not kidding.

The Crime Involved a Tank

Shawn Nelson’s local National Guard armory housed an armor unit. Contained therein were several M60A3 Main Battle Tanks. The local motor pool was surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with triple-strand barbed wire. Permanent party personnel typically went home around 1800 hours. They diligently locked the gate behind them as they left.

17 May 1995 was a Wednesday, and the Guard guys were working late for some reason. At 1830 Shawn Nelson drove his derelict van through the open gate and parked near the tanks. Shirtless and ill-kempt, he broke the locks securing three different tanks before he got one to start. By 1845, however, it was game on.

Nelson was an experienced tank driver. He crashed the gate with the turret traversed backward and the gun secured in the travel lock. For the next 25 minutes, he wreaked utter chaos in and around San Diego.

One resident later stated, “He didn’t go down the center of the street…It seems he just wanted to get the utilities and cause as much damage (as possible) without hurting people.”

Over the course of some six miles, he took out traffic lights, power poles, fire hydrants, and bus stops. In so doing he cut power to 5,100 households. Along the way, he also crushed forty vehicles including at least one motor home. Throughout it all, miraculously, no one was injured.

The Weapon Was a Tank

The M60A3 Patton was 31 feet long and could reach speeds of 45 miles per hour. The tank was powered by a Continental AVDS-1790-2 V12 air-cooled, twin-turbo diesel engine. It was armed with a superb 105mm M68 main gun along with a 7.62x51mm M73 coaxial gun and an M85 .50-caliber machine gun in the commander’s cupola, both of which kind of sucked. More than 15,000 of these vehicles were produced.

Like all military weapon systems, the machine evolved over time. The M60A1 was equipped with an M17A1 optical rangefinder that used a pair of lenses set on the sides of the turret to accurately determine range. This binocular periscope device rode in the two bug-eyed knobs on the exterior of the turret. With these two lenses focused on a target it became a simple mechanical exercise in geometry to determine the range. The later M60A3 included a laser rangefinder. I worked alongside M60 tanks early in my military career and found them to be more than adequately intimidating.

Nothing Lasts Forever

The authorities were in a bit of a quandary. Though bereft of ammunition, this was still a 114,000-pound armored vehicle. The cops didn’t have anything that would touch it. The Governor supposedly considered requesting armed tank or attack helicopter support. In the end, Shawn Nelson took care of the problem himself.

READ MORE: Dr. Dabbs – The Raid on Camp Bastion

In his enthusiasm to crush pretty much everything in sight, Nelson ran his pilfered tank up onto a concrete traffic barrier, wedging it in place. While trying to extricate himself he threw a track. Now the tank was immobilized.

The tank was in combat lockdown with the sundry hatches secured. Four extraordinarily brave San Diego PD officers mounted the thrashing vehicle and managed to get the commander’s hatch open using bolt cutters. Throughout it all Nelson tried to throw the officers clear by violently working the remaining track.

The cops had no idea whether or not Nelson was armed. Once they finally got the hatch opened they shot him in the right shoulder. He died on site. The coroner later reported that he had been intoxicated at the time. Here’s a video of the final moments.

The Aftermath for Shawn Nelson

This was still freaking California, so naturally folks took issue with the way the cops ended Nelson’s rampage. Only in the Land of Fruits and Nuts would four cops be brave enough to leap onto a rampaging tank and then have citizens complain that they did it wrong. The lawyers naturally got involved, and the State of California was forced to pay out $149,201 (about $273,000 today) to cover damages. Wow.

The following day all 28 tanks in Southern California Guard armories had their batteries removed for safekeeping. Those suckers are heavy. I suspect that was a fairly unpopular play among the tankers tasked with carrying out this edict. Because it was still California, all California National Guard tanks were eventually moved to Fort Irwin and Camp Roberts for safekeeping. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t just pass some fresh new tank control laws to guarantee that the Shawn Nelsons of the world could no longer steal tanks. Freaking California…

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