HARRISBURG — Hours after a Harrisburg man pleaded guilty to attempting to murder Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in a brazen arson attack earlier this year, the Democrat said he and his family are still struggling with the emotional aftermath but will not be deterred from public service.
At a news conference in the state Capitol on Tuesday, Shapiro, together with his wife Lori, told reporters that he still replays the haunting steps the attacker, Harrisburg resident Cody Balmer, took in the dead of night on April 13, just hours after he, his family, and friends had celebrated Passover.
That is when Balmer scaled the perimeter fence at the governor’s residence in Harrisburg, walked unimpeded up to the stately mansion, broke windows, and used homemade Molotov cocktails to set fire to several rooms inside while Shapiro and his family were asleep. Balmer has told law enforcement authorities that had he encountered the governor that night, he would have beaten Shapiro with a hammer he had brought with him.
“Now, when we walk through the residence, we often think about the steps he took and where he roamed,” Shapiro said Tuesday. “Those doors that he tried to break through, that metal hammer that he wielded that apparently he wanted to use to kill me.”
Earlier in the day, Balmer pleaded guilty to attempted murder, aggravated arson, and other offenses. He will serve at least 25 years in prison.
Shapiro said he and his family “fully supported” Balmer’s plea deal, and called it “a just outcome.”
Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo’s office, which prosecuted Balmer, released chilling videos Tuesday showing parts of the attack.
They show Balmer determinedly striding up to the mansion, breaking a window, and starting a blaze with a homemade device which law enforcement has previously described as a beer bottle filled with gasoline.
They also depict him entering the mansion after jumping through a window he broke, and roaming through several rooms unsuccessfully trying to kick down doors — including ones that led to the governor’s private quarters — before walking out.
“‘Why would someone want to do us harm?’ our kids will ask. ‘How were they able to get so far into the governor’s residence, the place that was supposed to be the safest place we could possibly be?’” Shapiro said in describing just some of the emotional scars his family still carries.
Personally, Shapiro said, he struggles with what he called an “enormous sense of guilt.”
“Guilt that doing this job I love so much has put our children’s lives at risk,” he said. “It’s been really hard and candidly, I don’t know that I’ve been able to give them the right answers,” he said. “I don’t know that I’ve been able to ease our children’s worries, but I can tell you, we’ve tried, and it’s been an ongoing effort.”
Shapiro took the opportunity to once again decry political violence and urge people not to normalize it.
“I think it’s important that in this time of rising political violence, that none of us grow numb to it or accept this as the normal course of doing business for elected officials,” he said, adding that he’s heard from many leaders in Pennsylvania and beyond about their worry over the risks of public service.
He said he has leaned on his faith to work through those same concerns, and remains committed to “doing our work on behalf of Pennsylvania.”
“And,” he said, “nothing and no one will stop us from doing that important work.”
Security at the governor’s residence and around Shapiro has been tightened in the months since the attack.
The Pennsylvania State Police has said it created a new uniformed unit to protect the residence and will use marked vehicles to maintain a more visible police presence there.
The existing special detail unit within the State Police will continue to provide security for Shapiro and other high-level officials. Those troopers, who are not in uniform, have for years accompanied the governor at both public and private events. They also have an office inside the residence that they staff around the clock.
The law enforcement agency, however, has not said how many more troopers will be stationed at the residence, and has also been steadfastly tight-lipped about how Balmer was able to chart his path of destruction during his attack, when there were troopers on duty at the residence.
In the days after the attack, the State Police hired a private consultant to assess its security protocols. The consultant — Jeffrey Miller, a former State Police commissioner who now runs a private security firm — produced a report that was not made public.
On Tuesday, Shapiro said he is grateful to the troopers who rushed him and his family to safety that night and to the firefighters who responded to the blaze, as well as the residence’s staff who “come to work with purpose and joy every day.”