You probably saw the reports that there was an arson attempt of some sort at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion last night on the first night of Passover. The original reports, at least the ones I saw, did not capture the gravity of what happened. “Firebombing” would be the only accurate way to describe the photos released this afternoon by the governor’s office. It’s possible that the original accounts provided to local media themselves didn’t capture the scale of the incident. A late afternoon press conference described it in more detail and released video and photographs. You can see the full collection of photos here. I’m republishing four of them below.
The governor’s family was safely evacuated and a suspect, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, has been arrested. While the incident seems highly likely to be an anti-Semitic hate crime, little background on Balmer has yet emerged that specifically sheds light on his beliefs or ideology. He does have a criminal record — forgery in 2015, assault in 2023. But on their face the charges are ones without an obvious political or ideological component.
