Suspect in Pennsylvania arson attack 'harbored hate' against Governor Josh Shapiro

The suspect in an arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's residence told state troopers that he used homemade Molotov cocktails to set the mansion on fire and that he would have beaten Shapiro with a hammer if he had encountered him inside.

After turning himself into law enforcement authorities, the 38-year-old suspect, Cody Balmer, said that he "harbored hate" toward the governor, according to a summary of a police interview with him filed in court.

Balmer is accused of the latest episode of political violence directed at a US elected official.

Sunday's attack bore similarities with the October 2022 home invasion at the San Francisco residence of Nancy Pelosi, then the Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. In that incident, a man beat her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer.

Balmer turned himself in to Pennsylvania State Police troopers, according to the police account, and has been charged with attempted murder, arson, burglary, and terrorism intended to coerce "the conduct of a government," among other felonies.

Shapiro, a Democrat who is Jewish, said he had held a seder on Saturday to celebrate the first night of Passover, a major Jewish holiday, with his family and guests in the dining room of the mansion in Harrisburg, the state capital. They were asleep during the arson attack. A state trooper banged on his door around 2 a.m. Sunday morning to rush them to safety.

Balmer told troopers he had filled beer bottles with gasoline from a lawnmower before walking about an hour to reach the governor's mansion, according to the police summary.

Once he arrived, he scaled a fence, smashed the window of the mansion's piano room and threw a Molotov cocktail inside, police said, citing video recorded by security cameras. He then smashed his way inside and ignited the dining room before fleeing, according to the police account.

Balmer, who describes himself as a certified master mechanic on his Facebook page, remained in custody on Monday. It was not clear whether he had a lawyer.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE

In a March 2021 Facebook post, Balmer expressed his displeasure with high gasoline prices. It showed a picture of himself with the caption "Biden owes me 2 Grand" and a caption that read, "I'm just sayin, Five dollars was gas money when Trump was president."

Violence and assassination attempts against elected politicians in the U.S. are rare, but not unheard of.

During last year's presidential election race, a man used a rifle to shoot President Donald Trump, wounding his ear, during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In 2017, a man shot multiple people at a practice session in Virginia for an annual congressional baseball game.

In 2011, Gabby Giffords, then a Democrat representing Arizona in the House of Representatives, was shot in the head, leaving her with a debilitating brain injury.

Shapiro, seen as a potential candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 2028, said at a press conference on Sunday that FBI Director Kash Patel had spoken to him a few hours earlier and promised "all the resources of the federal government" in investigating the attack.

The residence was set on fire hours after Shapiro posted a picture of his family's seder table, which he described as a celebration of going "from slavery into freedom."

"I refuse to be trapped by the bondage that someone attempts to put on me by attacking us as they did here last night," he said on Sunday.

When asked whether the attack could have been motivated by antisemitism, Shapiro said he would defer to the findings from federal authorities and Pennsylvania's district attorney.