On Thursday evening, a man from Indiana pulled up in a green Mazda sedan at a Key West US Navy base.
Trumbo Point Base sits off Palm Avenue, across from the Peary Court neighborhood, with a Navy Sentry officer posted at the security checkpoint gate.
The Navy Master of Arms on Sentry duty told the Mazda man to leave the property.
She held onto his driver’s license until he had completely turned around and had passed the gate.
When she went to hand him back his driver’s license, he replied with something that police later said wasn’t true:
“I have C4 and I could blow up the base if I wanted to," the driver said, while leaving.
He was in jail by nightfall for claiming he had C4 plastic explosives — which he did not.
Jonathon David Mathews, 41, of Indianapolis, Indiana, the man with the green Mazda 5, was arrested by Key West police near Home Depot, within a half hour after Navy dispatch notified them of the green Mazda driver’s response.
Mathews had no explosives on him, in his car or in his hotel room, police said after they searched.
During a pat-down search, officers found an Atomic Aquatics dive knife strapped to his calf.
The day before, Mathews had walked into the Key West Police Department’s lobby, police said, asking for “off the grid” directions to the Joint Interagency Task Force South [JIATIF] in Key West.
Mathews said he worked for the CIA.
“He stated he wanted to spread the word of God as a missionary and work for his King [President Donald Trump],” according to KWPD reports.
Mathews told police he didn’t threaten to blow up the base and that his words were taken out of context.
“That’s a false charge,” he told police. “I never threatened to bomb that place. This is my home country. Why would I blow up my own country.”
Mathews said he couldn’t believe the Navy Sentry didn’t search his trunk, conduct a “cavity search,” use mirrors to check beneath the Mazda “like they do at the border,” or bring out a K-9 to check his car.
“I could have an AR-15 in there and they don’t,” he said of the trunk, police reported. “No one even knows. I could have C4 in there. Nobody knows, cause it’s America.”
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Mathews said the incident showed there were security risks at the base, or a “security loophole.”
“These are the gates of the United States right here,” he said.
He also said he had dementia and a traumatic brain injury.
“Mathews acknowledged making the statement about C4 and explosives, and indicated he was testing base security’s response to threats,” KWPD spokeswoman Shannon Perzel said in a statement.
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But saying he could “blow up” a military installation with named plastic explosives is still a threat “whether serious or not,” and treated as a credible threat, Perzel said.
Mathews faces a second-degree felony charge of threatening to discharge a destructive device. He told police he was an independent contractor and a data engineer for his own company.
The checkpoint outside Key West Naval Air Station’s Trumbo Point Annex leads to housing for active-duty military personnel, hotels, helicopter port, and campgrounds, plus two islands: Dredger’s Key and Fleming Key, both off-limits to the public.
It’s also home to the famous “Fly Navy” logo that you can see while driving over the Palm Avenue bridge. It’s on the side of one of two hotels on the property.
On Friday evening, Mathews remained at the county jail on Stock Island. No bond information was immediately available.
Mathews has a court date set for 8:45 a.m. Sept. 4. It was not immediately clear if he had legal representation.
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