At 8:15 a.m. on April 1, North Platte police went to a restaurant on Dewey St. to check out a report of an arson.
Deputy North Platte Police Chief Kendall Allison said the address was the 1300 block of S. Dewey, which is in the area or Fat Dogs, McDonald’s and other stores.
Allison said the business provided surveillance video that showed someone walk into the “trash corral” behind the business at 3:15 a.m. on March 31. Fifteen minutes later, a fire could be seen on the video. The fire caused about $2,500 in damages to the business property and apparently was deliberately started.
The next morning around 8:23 a.m., police contacted a suspect, Brian Howard, near Exit 177 of the I-80 interchange. Howard was positively identified as the suspect in the arson, Allison said.
Howard was told he was under arrest for arson, whereupon he resisted and had to be physically restrained. He was charged with third-degree arson with damages of more than $1,500, a class IV felony, resisting arrest, a class I misdemeanor, and littering, a class III misdemeanor.
Allison said investigators noted that Howard had just been released on March 31 from the Keith County jail on a charge of arson. Upon his release, Keith County authorities reportedly took him to Exit 177 of I-80 and dropped him off.
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HA! Ogallala didn’t want him so they dumped him in North Platte and didn’t look back!
We should take him to exit 442 and kick him out.