Radical Leftist smacked with lengthy prison sentence for near assassination of U.S. governor
Democrat radicals have completely lost it. They’re committing the most unspeakable crimes.
And a radical Leftist was smacked with a lengthy prison sentence for the near assassination of this U.S. governor.
In a major win for justice, the deranged fire-starter who tried to burn down Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s official residence back in April has been hit with a hefty sentence. Cody Balmer, 38, pleaded guilty and now faces 25 to 50 years in prison for his cowardly nighttime attack that put innocent lives on the line.
Balmer owned up to a whopping 22 counts, including arson, attempted m*rder, terrorism, and more. This all went down on April 13, in Harrisburg, while 17 people—including kids—were inside the governor’s home.
The timing couldn’t have been more sinister: it happened on the second day of Passover. Shapiro and his family had just wrapped up their Seder the previous evening, hosting guests and even having two state troopers on duty for protection when the blaze erupted.
Thankfully, everyone inside made it out unharmed, but the damage was massive. The 1968-built residence, lacking any sprinkler system, suffered millions in destruction from the flames.
Balmer didn’t stop at just fire; he confessed to cops that he was ready to bash Shapiro with a mini-sledgehammer if he crossed paths with the Democrat leader during the chaos.
Prosecutors revealed Balmer’s twisted mindset, driven by rage over the Gaza conflict. As Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo put it, the attacker admitted “he was concerned about the war in Gaza and the potential for many millions dying — his words,” and added, “And he said, you know, even if I just have to take a life, I’m not crazy about having to take a life, but I will if it’s because of the millions endangered. So he viewed this as an offset to the the war in the Middle East.”
Balmer’s family tried to spin it as a mental health breakdown, claiming he went off his meds and suffered manic episodes. His mom insisted she begged for help but got nowhere, saying “nobody would help.”
Despite that, Balmer pushed back against any hate crime label in a letter to the Associated Press in May, insisting the governor “can be Jewish, Muslim, or a purple people eater for all I care and as long as he leaves me and mine alone.”
He never spilled the beans on what exactly fueled his beef with Shapiro, leaving folks to connect the dots to his Gaza obsession and anti-Israel fervor.
Shapiro didn’t hold back after the sentencing, telling reporters, “It’s hard for me to stand before you today and utter the words, attempted m*rder, and it’s your own life, to know that someone tried to k*ll me.”
The governor got emotional, adding, “It’s especially hard to know that he tried to burn our family to death while we slept,” and confessed, “I’ve carried with me this enormous sense of guilt. Guilt that doing this job that I love so much has put our children’s lives at risk.”
Security cams caught the whole nightmare: Balmer scaling an iron fence under cover of darkness, dodging guards, busting a window in the home’s southern wing, and hurling in homemade Molotov cocktails to ignite the inferno.
The fire ravaged everything in its path, including walls, a piano, and plates. Window panes and bricks took heavy hits too.
Shapiro hammered home the bigger picture amid surging political attacks, declaring, “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 wrapped up by sharing the family’s ongoing struggle: “Sadly, this made it all real, and it brings with it a real sense of vulnerability that our family feels every single day. I want you to know we are working through this,” and noted, “This is an ongoing thing that we are dealing with and we are working through.”
This case exposes the ugly underbelly of radical activism gone wild, where unhinged individuals like Balmer justify violence over foreign policy gripes, endangering American families and fueling division right here at home.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
