.png)
2 hours ago
2
Last July, a young man driving an ATV committed a series of attacks in Hancock, a small city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, including slashing tire valves, breaking car windows, and even running down an elderly man putting up yard signs in support of President-elect Donald Trump.
Hancock police almost immediately claimed that the incidents were "politically motivated" since the driver seemingly targeted the property of those who openly supported Trump and/or law enforcement.
In an effort to learn more details about the incidents and the suspect, Blaze News obtained multiple police reports as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. We also spoke with several individuals associated with the incidents. From these conversations, Blaze News learned not only that the suspect had serious mental health issues but that he even struggled with his gender identity and took female hormones prior to the attack.
'Kind of ran me down': Political rage leads to violence
On the afternoon of July 21, 81-year-old Carl Nelson and his brother, 78-year-old Paul Nelson, were outside Paul's home in Hancock, minding their own business, when a man on an ATV came barreling down the street, full of rage apparently directed at then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"I was out in the front yard a little bit," Carl Nelson recalled to Blaze News, "and there had been some political signs that had been put up in the yards up and down the street there, and some guy comes along on a little four-wheeler — riding on it, dressed in all black — and comes whipping through, grabbing all the signs, runs across the street with them, and throws them in a swamp pile."
Carl told Blaze News that the driver never spoke, though he previously told police that the driver "started yelling obscenities" and gave the Nelson brothers the double bird.
The driver 'wasn't really targeting Biden people,' he said, just 'more or less the Trump and the Republican end of things.'
The driver then sped away. With the man gone, Carl proceeded to retrieve a couple of the signs and put them back up in his brother's yard.
The act of restoring the signs apparently stoked the ire of the driver, who returned to Paul's street, seemingly determined to remove the Trump signs again. According to a statement Paul gave to police, the driver then suddenly "veered off the road into the yard" and struck Carl from behind.
Carl told Blaze News he never saw it coming.
"He was coming from behind me and kind of ran me down," he explained.
The blow from the vehicle knocked Carl to the ground, where he hit his head and he briefly lost consciousness. Cops and first responders arrived on the scene quickly and transported him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a brain bleed. He also had abrasions and deep bruises all over his body.
Composite screenshot of police report
Walter LaPlante, who lived across the street from Paul at the time of the incident, recalled the scene vividly.
"I was sitting there having a couple drinks for the day of my day off, eating breakfast and just having a nice relaxing day, and I see this four-wheeler blow through the stop sign," he told Blaze News. "And about 10 minutes later, I see cops everywhere, and I look out the window, and I see they're down at that fellow's house and there's an ambulance there and about six, seven cop cars."
LaPlante said that such a "politically motivated attack" was "shocking" to his quiet community. The driver "wasn't really targeting Biden people," he said, just "more or less the Trump and the Republican end of things."
Police did not take long to zero in on a suspect: 22-year-old Joshua Kemppainen of Hancock, a name Carl Nelson and LaPlante said they did not recognize.
The day after the incidents involving the ATV, Kemppainen called the cops so that he could "turn himself in for the crimes of vandalism he committed," a police report said. Police and sheriff's deputies raced to Kemppainen's address, where they found Kemppainen dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. They then searched his residence and collected evidence, including an ATV, apparel that matched the description of clothes worn by the driver, and some electronic devices.
'Shaved legs' and 'thigh-highs': Kemppainen presents as female
Until that fateful July day, Kemppainen had no encounters with local law enforcement. While he may not have been in trouble with the law, accounts from those who knew him best indicate that he was a troubled young man.
A few days after the attack on Carl Nelson, Joshua's father, David Kemppainen, and other relatives met with Hancock Police Chief Tami Sleeman. David informed Sleeman that Joshua had been been bullied in high school and that he had been diagnosed with autism. Joshua had also been taking medicine for depression, but that medicine had recently changed.
Another individual familiar with Joshua also reached out to law enforcement: Lane Campbell, a 25-year-old gamer who lives more than 500 miles from Hancock in southeastern Michigan between Lansing and Detroit. Campbell and Joshua met online and often played video games together.
Campbell told Blaze News that at first, Joshua was "awkward" and aloof and rarely shared anything personal. "It took a lot of talking to him in general and getting to know him in general before he kind of opened up," Campbell said.
'Sometimes he'd have a super high-pitched voice and be squealy and girly, and then the other times he'd have a super deep voice.'
But soon, the two guys "clicked," Campbell said. In fact, their friendship eventually became sexual in nature, and the two exchanged nude photos and other explicit messages. Campbell, who never met Kemppainen in person, characterized their relationship as "online f*** buddies."
Because of their intimate connection, Campbell learned firsthand that Kemppainen struggled with his gender identity. In addition to nude photos, Kemppainen sent Campbell pictures of himself with "shaved legs" as well as wearing "thigh-highs" and "skirts," Campbell said.
"It'd be weird. Sometimes he'd have a super high-pitched voice and be squealy and girly, and then the other times he'd have a super deep voice, kind of like a 'wake up in the morning' voice," Campbell recalled to Blaze News.
Campbell said that at some point during their friendship, Kemppainen had been seeing a psychiatrist and had even taken estrogen for a bit.
"He had taken hormones," Campbell explained. "He'd taken estrogen before but was off it pretty much, like, three months into me knowing him."
If Campbell's timeline is correct, Kemppainen would have stopped taking estrogen around February 2023, nearly a year and a half before the ATV attack, since the two men met online in November 2022.
Campbell does not believe Kemppainen was taking estrogen at the time of the ATV incidents, though the last time he spoke with him was in June 2024, a month before they occurred.
Campbell also insisted that Kemppainen never identified himself as a woman and did not care much about pronouns. "He wasn't trying to be transsexual," Campbell said. Instead, Kemppainen was more "transgender" and wanted "to be viewed more as a woman."
Records show that Campbell gave Chief Sleeman similar statements about Kemppainen's forays into transvestism and gender transition. Campbell also furnished her with screenshots of some of his Discord exchanges with Kemppainen. The screenshots are included in the police reports but are so grainy as to be entirely illegible.
Screenshot of police report
Campbell declined to share those screenshots with Blaze News, citing privacy concerns.
Blaze News left messages with Joshua's parents, David and Mia Kemppainen, but did not receive a return call.
Kemppainen and 'far-left' politics
It seems that Kemppainen's gender-identity problems may also have helped shape his politics and affected the way he viewed his community.
"He felt like in his community, being a very conservative rural community, he couldn't express being more feminine," Campbell said.
Campbell told police that Kemppainen held mainly "far-left" views and added to Blaze News that his friend had become increasingly frustrated with the Democratic Party, especially at the national level. By summer 2024, Kemppainen had little hope of a Democratic victory in the 2024 election.
"He's like, 'The Dems are just f***ing idiots at this point,'" Campbell recalled Kemppainen saying.
Kemppainen was also "anti-government" in general and harbored animus against law enforcement, Campbell said, calling all cops "f***ing pigs and a bunch of idiots." Kemppainen was particularly incensed about the cop-involved shooting of Breonna Taylor.
Kemppainen also apparently fantasized about committing suicide by cop. "It was the more suicidal bit and wanting to kind of go out and be like, 'I hope I get pulled over by a cop ... just so I can f***ing shoot him and then, you know ...'" Campbell said.
Despite mainly far-left views, Kemppainen was also a gun enthusiast and even spent time in the Army.
'He never kind of wished harm on anybody.'
In the weeks leading up to the ATV incidents, Campbell had become increasingly worried about Kemppainen's mental state. Kemppainen had a history of substance abuse, Campbell said, and would frequently use drugs or alcohol while playing games with him online.
Though Campbell declined to share with Blaze News screenshots of his Discord exchanges with Kemppainen, he did read aloud the final message he ever received from his late friend: "I'm getting wasted. I'm playing with my AK. Wish me luck."
Campbell said he responded by asking Kemppainen to be careful but that "he never got back to me on that."
When police discovered Kemppainen lifeless at his home, they found "an AK-style rifle between his legs."
Campbell also insisted that while Kemppainen was no fan of Trump, he never threatened violence against Trump supporters. "He never kind of wished harm on anybody," Campbell said.
According to a police report, David Kemppainen, Joshua's father, said his son "did not have a 'mean bone' in his body" and that the ATV attack "was not like him at all." He also told police that his son "did not have any political issues."
Another relative characterized Joshua as a "good kid" who "loved to go fishing and hunting" with his grandfather.
'A debacle': Continued fallout
Joshua Kemppainen's suicide was not the end of the story for anyone involved. His mother, Mia Kemppainen, was so distraught over her son's death and apparent outburst of violence that she "was not able to come in to talk with the police" when they asked, David Kemppainen said, according to a police report. Mia did later go to the police station to retrieve her son's confiscated belongings.
Family members who did speak with police were visibly "shaken" by Joshua's alleged crime spree and expressed concern about the elderly victim.
Lane Campbell believes that Kemppainen's alleged involvement in the ATV attack was "a cry for help." He also seemed to speak very carefully about the attack, describing it to Blaze News as "a debacle" and Kemppainen's alleged actions as "deplorable" but then adding that they might be "understandable" to some people.
"I think ... that he genuinely cared and just was misunderstood and because of that and his mental issues that led to him to going down the path he took," said Campbell, who also struggles with mental health issues.
"I wasn't expecting him to be a criminal, but I wasn't expecting him to kill himself."
By all accounts, Kemppainen was a loner. He had few friends in the real world, had recently lost an online friend to suicide, and had difficulty holding down a job. He could have returned to the Army after COVID but for whatever reason chose not do so.
Campbell believes that extreme isolation contributed to Kemppainen's decline and advocated for those with fragile mental health to go outside, "touch grass," and mingle with regular people. "We need to be more connected as a society," he said.
'It could've been a little worse than it actually was.'
For his part, Carl Nelson has made almost a full recovery. "For little a while, my right knee bothered me, but that's gone now," he told Blaze News.
Aside from describing his attacker as an "idiot," he also does not seem to carry much resentment about the incident. "It's something we lived through and survived," he stated matter-of-factly.
"It could've been a little worse than it actually was."
Nelson, who lives in Wisconsin, added that several lawyers in the Hancock area approached him and offered to file a lawsuit against the suspect's parents but that he had declined their offer. "[The parents] obviously didn't have any control over him, so nothing could be done by trying to suck some money out of them," he explained. "So I didn't do it."
In fact, Nelson said that he and his brother, Paul, a devout Catholic, had prayed together for the ATV driver.
Sadly, in early August, just a few days after Carl Nelson was hospitalized because of the attack, Paul Nelson died after a brief battle with cancer.
"He was actually a very religious person," Carl said. "So he went while praying."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
English (US)