Violent offender arrested, jailed

A violent offender accused of not registering with authorities was booked into jail on Monday, three days after the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office launched a social media effort to help track him down.

David Clarke Howke, 43, is being held on $25,000 bond for failure to register as a violent offender.

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said he did not know whether or not it was a citizen tip that helped land Howke back in jail.

“We’ve had great success with social media on a lot of cases,” Curry said. “I don’t know that it did help in this case, but we gets lots of information from everything we post. It’s been a great forum for us.”

According to court documents, Howke allegedly admitted to investigators in a telephone interview that he had lived at multiple locations in Flathead County since 2011. He had not registered as a violent offender, as required by law because of a 2001 conviction for felony partner family member assault.

He also has a $10,000 warrant for his arrest out of Lewis and Clark County for theft.

The Sheriff’s Office used an email alert and Facebook post to help get the word out that he was wanted. The post was shared more than 308 times. People can receive alerts from the Sheriff’s Office directly by signing up for an email newsletter at flatheadcountysheriff.com. Curry said his office is considering using Twitter in the future, but has not yet added it.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.