Explosive set off near church, Red Oak man in custody

A Red Oak man is in custody after detonating an explosive device Tuesday night.
Matthew Sloan, 42, Red Oak, is facing charges of possession of an incendiary device with intent, a Class C felony; possession of a controlled substance/methamphetamine, second offense, an aggravated misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct/loud raucous noise, a simple mesdemeanor.
The charges stem from the incident that occurred at around 8:45 the evening of Feb. 24. Eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion which some initially believed was an exploding transformer, though was later determined to be an explosive device.  It was also determined that the explosion took place in the area of 600 Hammond Street near the First United Methodist Church.
Red Oak Police Chief Justin Rhamy said thankfully, this type of situation is not regularly encountered in the city, and he hopes it will be a long time before the situation arises again. As for what device was used, at this point, they can only speculate.
“It was not a Molotov cocktail, It was an actual physical explosive device, but it’s hard to say exactly what type of device it was with it being detonated. We did get pieces of it after the detonation. We could tell it was like a mortar round, it was in a cardboard tube of some sort. We can only speculate at this point if it was something homemade or something that was bought after market, like a large firework that only the big fireworks organizations shoot during fireworks displays,” advised Rhamy.
Because of the location Sloan set off the device, the damage done was thankfully minimal.
“He triggered the device down by the road where the alley is between Reed and Hammond streets. It actually fired near a retaining wall that was in front of and to the west of the church itself. It appears that the edges of one block were chipped by the explosion when it went off, but there was no damage of any magnitude,” commented Rhamy.
Rhamy said it was a fortunate situation that the explosion didn’t cause more damage than it did.
“I would say it’s definitely lucky. From the reports that we received throughout the evening, it definitely packed a punch, and it was definitely very loud. There were people from several blocks away in town that had heard it and were talking about it on Facebook trying to determine what it was, which demonstrates that it was an explosion of some magnitude,” stated Rhamy.
While initially thought of as a power problem, Rhamy said once they arrived on scene, they were able to rule that out very quickly.
“Nobody lost electricity in the immediate area where the calls were originating from, so a transformer explosion was something that we ruled out very quickly, as when a a transformer explodes or blows up, there’s almost always a power outage, and this situation didn’t have any of that occur.”
Once law enforcement investigators determined an explosive device had been detonated, they were able to track down and apprehend Sloan very quickly.
“Throughout the course of the investigation, we had several people in the area with Ring door cameras or cameras on their house in general, which were able to lead us to Mr. Sloan. Getting the videos and then having those videos being good enough to depict where that individual went as soon as he ignited the device was instrumental. The camera pretty much followed him and he took off from there after that. I’m sure once law enforcement and fire started heading that way with lights and sirens, he probably bolted for a little bit, thinking he was going to try to be in the clear. But he wasn’t, and he was arrested at around 10:42 p.m. that Tuesday evening,” explained Rhamy.
Without the video camera evidence, Rhamy said there would have been difficulty in getting an arrest.
“If we didn’t have the videos from the neighbors, we wouldn’t have been able to develop much into a case at all. It might have ended up just being investigated as a firework actually going off, because without the video, we’d have only had the leftover pieces of the device to go off of,” Rhamy said.
Rhamy added that after interviewing the suspect, it was determined that he hadn’t acted with malicious intent.
“He had a friend that died two or three years ago on Feb. 24, and he felt the urge to set it off because of that,” commented Rhamy.
Rhamy said the initial explosives investigation led to them finding more things to charge Sloan with.
“The initial search warrant that was granted to us by the magistrate was to search his residence for any sort of explosive or firearm. After we made entry into that, we discovered there were narcotics, which warranted an additional search warrant request through the magistrate’s office, which was also granted and led to the drug charge.
While he’s currently facing multiple charges in Red Oak, Rhamy said only time will tell if he ends up facing anything on a federal level for setting off an explosive device.
“Anything is possible, but the elements of the crime or the intent that we would have to prove is of a pretty large magnitude for the suspect being charged with terrorism or something like that at this point in time. If it had been set off at an earlier time, when there may have been people in the church, that would have been a vastly different situation, but he set it off at 8:45 p.m. when where wasn’t a soul around, and he didn’t set it off next to the building, it was down by the road.  With those elements and the suspect’s stated intent, we’d be hard pressed for that to reach the level of intent needed for the suspect to be charged in federal court. We’ll most certainly have some conversations with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Iowa State Fire Marshal’s Office and possibly the Iowa Attorney General’s office and see where we go from there.
Rhamy also said he was pleased that the investigation moved quickly and the suspect was apprehended less than two hours after setting off the device.
Sloan was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $10,000 bond.