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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Pa. arson suspect was out on bail when he allegedly firebombed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s mansion
2025-04-15
[NYPOST] The Pennsylvania man accused of firebombing Gov. Josh Shapiro's mansion was out on bail when he allegedly carried out the arson, The Post can reveal.

Cody Balmer's mother, meanwhile, said she desperately tried to get police to lock up her son prior to the attack.
Off his meds, Mom said yesterday. Will he turn out to be bipolar or schizophrenic?
Balmer, 38, pulled sick faces as he was hauled back into a Harrisburg courtroom for his arraignment Monday, where he was hit with eight charges including terrorism, aggravated arson, criminal homicide and prowling at night.

The former mechanic, who said he is now jobless, penniless and lives with his parents, was free after making bail for a 2023 simple assault charge, courts spokesperson Stacey Witalec told The Post.

In that case, he was accused of stomping on his 10-year-old son's broken leg and battering his wife, according to a police report.
The Times of Israel adds:
A man who US authorities say scaled an iron security fence early Sunday morning, eluded police, and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion where he set a fire told police he had planned to beat Governor Josh Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents.

Cody Balmer had walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during a police interview, “Balmer admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit, but it did not explain why. Balmer faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson, and aggravated assault, authorities said.
Related:
Josh Shapiro 04/14/2025 Man charged with terrorism, attempted murder, aggravated arson and aggravated assault over home arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. @JoshShapiroPA.
Josh Shapiro 04/09/2025 Supreme Court rules on status of tens of thousands of fired probationary employees
Josh Shapiro 04/08/2025 Josh Shapiro awards $5 MILLION grant to Al-Aqsa Islamic Society in Philadelphia to expand school, the largest ever awarded to a Muslim group

Posted by:Fred

#5  More from Townhall:

Balmer previously worked as a welder and mechanic. But he was unemployed by the time of the incident and lived with his parents. The suspect served eight years as an Army reservist. He has an extensive criminal history, pleading guilty to forgery and theft in 2015 and 2016.

The suspect also has an ongoing assault charge from 2023.

About the assault :

In late Jan. 2023, local police were called to a home in the Harrisburg area for what was characterized in court documents as an "active physical domestic" incident.

"A child caller advised his stepfather was beating his mother," the responding officer's affidavit said. The officer responded and outside the home met Balmer's then-wife "in an elevated state, yelling and crying about her husband, Cody Balmer, having assaulted her."

"Cody was still inside the residence," the officer said.

Balmer told the officer "that he had taken a bottle full of pills in an attempt to kill himself," the affidavit said. "An argument ensued between Cody and [his wife] to a point that his 13-year-old son" had "stepped in between them. Cody then admitted to shoving his son and that a fight ensued between all parties. Cody showcased injuries to his face."

Balmer had hit his 10-year-old son "in the chest and stepped on his broken leg in the midst of a scuffle with the victim and two others," and had hit his 13-year-old son and his wife "with closed fists, and bit his wife causing a puncture wound on her hand," according to the criminal complaint.
Posted by: trailing wife   2025-04-15 17:11  

#4  The fact that the PA state security detail failed a Democrat governor as badly as a Republican Presidential candidate, fills my heart with hope of a new bipartisan incompetence.
Posted by: Regular joe   2025-04-15 16:04  

#3  Story I heard was the security detail knew there was a breach and were searching for the bad guy.
Posted by: Bobby   2025-04-15 11:21  

#2  Where, in the Hell, was Gov. Shapiro's Security Detail?

At the time, singing Chad Gadya.
Posted by: Penguin_of_the_Best_Desert   2025-04-15 10:06  

#1  
Cody Balmer is bipolar schizophrenia w/o Med's.

He has avoided Court trial regarding his 2023 arrest, 10x's over the last 2 years. That arrest was for physically harming his wife, slugging his 10 & 13 y/o Kids, and stomping on one of his kid's already broken leg in 2023.

How locking up these violent Mentally Ill, nut jobs?
Because obviously the liberal idea of deinstitutionalization is not working

BTW: some say it started in 1967 when the California Legislature passed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act. This act made involuntary hospitalization of mentally ill people extremely difficult. The results, 1 year after that CAL. law went into effect, the number of mentally ill people in the CAL. Criminal-justice system doubled.

OBTW: Where, in the Hell, was Gov. Shapiro's Security Detail?
Posted by: NN2N1   2025-04-15 04:57  

00:00