The suspect accused of firebombing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's home admitted to the crime and said he was motivated by a deep hatred of the governor, according to the police.
Cody Balmer, 38, used a hammer to break into the governor’s mansion, where he exploded three Molotov cocktails, according to an affidavit filed early Monday morning.
He told police he would have used the hammer to attack the governor if they’d come to face to face, the affidavit alleges.
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Police say Balmer jumped the fence at the governor’s mansion early Sunday morning while Shapiro and his family were sleeping upstairs.
Surveillance footage shows him breaking a window with a hammer and throwing a Molotov cocktail inside, “igniting a substantial fire within,” Fran Chardo, Dauphin County District Attorney, said in a statement accompanying the affidavit.
He then broke another window and entered the home.
“Within the residence, he started two more fires with two other Molotov cocktails. He then fled through a fire door,” Chardo said.
Balmer spent about a minute inside and “actively evaded” troopers who were searching for him during that time, CNN reported.
On Sunday, a woman contacted the police say Balmer, who was her ex-partner, had confessed to the arson. He later turned himself in at police headquarters in Harrisburg and admitted to setting the fires. Cops say he also admitted that he hated Shapiro and planned to beat him with the hammer if he encountered the governor during the break-in.
Officers searching his home found a jacket with distinctive shoulder patches that matched the jacket the suspect was wearing in the surveillance footage, according to Chardo.
Early Monday, Balmer was charged with attempted murder, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism and related offenses.
His mother Christie Balmer told CBS News on Sunday that Balmer was “mentally ill and he went off his medication.”
She said she had tried to get her son “picked up” last week and, despite reaching out to four different police departments, “couldn’t get anyone to help.”
“So, he was mentally ill, went off his meds, and this is what happened,” she said.
Balmer was already scheduled to enter a plea this week on unrelated charges stemming from an alleged assault last year. In 2016, he pleaded guilty to forgery and theft by deception charges, according to CNN.
During an emotional press conference Sunday, Shapiro said he and his family had been awakened at about 2 A.M. by state troopers assigned to their security detail banging on their doors telling them they’d been the victims of an arson.
Everyone was evacuated safely, but photos show the fire raged throughout the downstairs. Shapiro said the attack was “targeted” but did not provide a motive.
It came just hours after family and friends celebrated the first night of Passover.
“If he was trying to terrorize our family, our friends, the Jewish community, who joined us for a Passover Seder in that room last night, hear me on this: We celebrated our faith last night, proudly and in a few hours, we will celebrate our second Seder of Passover,” Shapiro said during the news conference.
“This type of violence is not OK,” he continued. “This kind of violence has become far too common in our society. And I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one side or the other … It is not OK and it has to stop. We have to be better than this.”
As of early Monday morning, President Donald Trump still hadn’t condemned the attack.
