A Guard on Hard Times Finds Arson Suspect : Crime: ‘Captain Hook’ shrugs off media attention after discovering the man in the restroom of a Studio City restaurant.

As authorities announced the arrest of a suspect Thursday in the string of Ventura Boulevard arson fires that caused $2.5 million in damages, an improbable hero emerged: a down on his luck, one-armed security guard known as “Captain Hook.”

Harold Van Buskirk, 44, identified a man loitering in a restroom at Charles’ restaurant in Studio City as the suspect just minutes after the waitress he orders coffee from each morning gave him a detailed description of the arson suspect authorities were seeking.

“It was wild,” said Van Buskirk, who lives in a motor home he parks in Studio City parking lots. “We were talking about this arsonist running around loose and I walk into the bathroom and there he is, just standing there.”

The coincidence was so strange that the waitress, Colleen Stinchfield, 29, didn’t believe Van Buskirk when he first told her the news.

“I said, ‘No way,’ ” Stinchfield said. “I thought he was kidding around because we were just talking about this guy and then he says that he saw him in the restroom.”

But Van Buskirk convinced Stinchfield, whose family has owned Charles’ since 1954. About a half hour later, police officers entered the restroom and arrested John Kellogges, 37, a transient. Police said his clothes smelled of smoke.

Within hours, Van Buskirk became the main figure in a story where numerous citizens were credited by authorities with first providing a detailed description of the suspect and then helping to apprehend him.

“I’ve had the Daily News, L.A. Times and Channels 2, 4, 7 and 11 out here,” he said while standing outside the 30-foot motor home with his dog, Rocky. “I got a message that some other channel wants to meet me at 4.

“Everybody is saying I was the hero, but I’m no hero. I just did what I should’ve done. If he was the guy, I didn’t want him to get away.”

Van Buskirk shrugged at all the attention and said he usually only draws the interest of RTD security officers who tell him he can’t park his motor home in the Ventura Boulevard commuter lot near Riverton Avenue. He said he is often shooed away from the lot but returns because he has nowhere else to go and little money to rent space for his 13-year-old motor home.

Van Buskirk lost his left arm in a childhood accident. He’s known by friends in the neighborhood and regulars at Charles’ restaurant as “Captain Hook” because he once had a steel hook prosthesis. “But I got rid of it because I kept scratching myself with it,” he said.

He said he lives on Social Security payments and money from odd jobs in the neighborhood. He also takes occasional security jobs at area construction sites, but it has been several weeks since he has been hired. He said he had to borrow $20 this week to buy propane to heat his motor home.

Despite the hard luck, he said he wasn’t looking for anything in return for his help in arresting the arson suspect. However, he said, maybe it will help him find more work as a security guard.

Stinchfield agreed.

“Captain Hook looks out for this neighborhood,” she said. “He is a good person to have around.”