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Father of Eppley tarmac crash suspect reacts

Posted at 10:46 PM, Aug 28, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-28 23:54:12-04
We have new information on a story that shocked Omaha.
 
A man on meth went on rampage on the tarmac of Eppley Airfield Thursday.
 
Police booked Delairo Koonce, 35, Saturday after he was released from the hospital.  
 
Omaha and Eppley police found him screaming at the airport Thursday after Koonce reportedly ran through the airport garage, stripped clothes off and climbed an eight foot barbed wire fence onto the tarmac.
 
Koonce then supposedly found an unlocked running airline pickup truck and slammed into the nose gear of a Southwest airplane. 
 
"He finally cried out loud enough where somebody got to pay him some attention and hopefully from this, he will get the correct help," Koonce’s father Brian tells KMTV. 
 
Koonce says his son was trying to get help with mental health issues for years but didn’t get the help he needed.
 
"People talk about, 'oh that guy's crazy. He did this,'” Brian Koonce said. “OK, so you said 'he's crazy,' why not deal with the mental issue of that and maybe he wouldn't have done that, simple as that.”
 
Delairo Koonce, a single father of four, had recently been offered a fulltime job but his therapist told him not to take the job, Brian Koonce said.
 
"He was on a uphill climb as long as he was working 12-hour shifts, too tired to do anything else and then he's about to get hired on full time and the therapist says, 'no, you need more therapy,'” Brian Koonce said. “He started going downhill, sitting at home just twiddling his dog-gone thumbs.” 
 
Koonce remains in jail awaiting formal charges.