"Around two in the morning on April 13th, an out-of-work car mechanic named Cody Balmer climbed over a metal perimeter fence outside the Pennsylvania governor's residence. In a backpack, he'd brought a sledgehammer and several Molotov cocktails, which he'd made by pouring gasoline siphoned from a lawnmower into Heineken bottles. It took just a few seconds for Balmer to cross a small, well-kept courtyard and reach the south side of the building, a twenty-nine-thousand-square-foot Georgian mansion overlooking the Susquehanna River."
"It was the first night of Passover. Hours earlier, the governor, Josh Shapiro, had led a seder, sitting in the middle of a long rectangular table in the dining room, surrounded by his wife, three of their children, his three siblings, and several nieces and nephews. Many of the guests were spending the night; as Balmer broke another window in the dining room and climbed inside, about twenty people were asleep upstairs."
Political violence increased during the Trump era, producing urgent threats that elected officials from both parties struggle to address. In Pennsylvania, an unemployed car mechanic, Cody Balmer, breached the governor's residence around two a.m., carrying a sledgehammer and homemade Molotov cocktails filled with gasoline siphoned from a lawnmower. Balmer shattered windows in the dining room during the first night of Passover while a family seder was underway; about twenty guests were sleeping upstairs. He ignited multiple Molotovs, started fires on the tablecloths, and attempted to force open a locked double door that separated him from the rest of the house. He fled after roughly a minute inside.
Read at The New Yorker
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