Shawn Timothy Nelson: The man who went on a tank rampage through San Diego
When I was a kid, I adored the James Bond films. One of my favourites was Goldeneye, especially its standout scene where Bond charges through the streets of Saint Petersburg in hot pursuit of the baddies while piloting a stolen T-55 tank.
On the surface, it seems like typical Bond. Deliriously fun hokum that might as well be set on Pluto for all the reality it represents. An excuse to have a kick-ass action sequence that still holds up over 30 years later, and absolutely nothing more. Well, truth is stranger than fiction and, quite fitting for a film that was hailed as a “grittier” and “more realistic” vision of Bond long before Casino Royale, it turns out that something not so different had happened earlier that very same year.
In May 1995, a 35-year-old unemployed plumber had rampaged through the streets of San Diego, California, on a stolen M60A3 tank. However, that’s where the comparisons with Bond’s adventure through the window to Europe begin and end. Were 007’s exploits as awesome as they were heroic, the story behind this tank-assisted jaunt through a densely populated city was a lot more depressing. Not even for the reasons you might think, either.
The man at the centre of it all was Shawn Timothy Nelson, a native of Clairemont, San Diego, who is a textbook example of a guy whose life leaves behind. At first, things seemed to be going pretty well for Nelson. He graduated from high school in 1976 before enlisting in the military in 1978. Despite lasting only two years before being honourably discharged for disciplinary issues, he served as a tank commander, which pointed to the thing that would, 15 years later, briefly make him a celebrity.
He could never know, however, that his celebrity would be posthumous.
Why did Nelson steal a tank?
Upon returning home, Nelson began a successful career as a plumber, working for several firms over the 1980s, and even married his high school sweetheart, Suzy Hellman, in 1984. He started his own business in 1991, and on the outside, you could see Nelson as a model American. Army vet, beautiful wife, successful career, all that was left would be a few kids, and the American dream would be complete, right? The truth is that Nelson’s life wasn’t so rosy on the inside.
See, those disciplinary issues that cut short his military career didn’t go away. He was a drinker and as the pressure of his job got to him, that only worsened and was combined with a methamphetamine addiction. He was hospitalised in 1990, suing them for malpractice. Hellman left him in 1991. His mother died in 1992. In 1994, his van containing all his plumbing tools was stolen, leaving him and his business to go bankrupt. By 1995, he was an unemployed addict whose house had just been foreclosed on, the power shut off, and his girlfriend had just left him.
With that in mind, it’s clear that his joyride was him being determined to go down in a blaze of glory, doing what he did best. He drove a van through the gates of a military base near his house, broke the three padlocks on the nearest tank and hurtled out into the San Diego evening. Clearly, he’s never lost his touch for the vehicle because, despite causing over a hundred thousand dollars in property damage, the only casualty of his joy ride was himself.
Eventually, the cops caught up, and Nelson refused to cooperate. A team of police officers prised the tank’s entrance lid off with bolt cutters and, unsure if Nelson was armed or not, shot him dead where he sat. Apparently, the smell of booze on him was so strong it could be smelt while the tank was still bolted shut.
The opposite of a Bond-esque fantasy, then, despite the surface similarities. If anyone really tries it, they don’t end up alive.