Man arrested in Josh Shapiro arson case posted about changing the world with Molotov cocktails
A 38-year-old charged with setting fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's (D) home early Sunday morning previously shared memes promoting violence on Facebook.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by the New York Post, Cody Balmer admitted to Harrisburg police that he had removed gasoline from a lawnmower and poured it into two Heineken bottles, which he then used as homemade Molotov cocktails that he threw into Shapiro's residence—just hours after Shapiro had hosted guests for the first night of Passover.
Authorities have described the attack as "targeted" but have not revealed a motive.
But Balmer's Facebook page shows that it's not the first time Molotov cocktails have crossed his mind.
In June 2022, Balmer shared a post from a fan page of a rock band that featured an embroidery of a Molotov cocktail whimsically captioned "Be the light you want to see in the world."
He posted two other memes alluding to violence around the same time as well.
One meme showed a bookshelf with two separately titled sections called "why not try...?" and "crime."
"Me: I could really use a sign. The universe: Why not try...? Crime," the post read.
"And knowing is half the battle! The other half is extreme violence," stated one G.I. Joe meme that he shared in March 2022 from a "Friendly Comrade" anticapitalist page.
Text overlay from another meme of his from 2020 similarly read: "When someone asks how people are supposed to live on minimum wage: the secret ingredient is crime."
Since his arrest, internet sleuths have theorized over potential political motives and leanings, with several right-wingers accusing him of being a major Kamala Harris fan.
Balmer's mother, Christie Balmer, told CBS her son is "mentally ill and he went off his medication" and that she had reached out to multiple police stations prior to the attack to get him "picked up," but that nobody helped.
Balmer's Facebook page is riddled with local Harrisburg magazine articles, memes about smoking weed, and a range of political declarations—from deriding President Donald Trump yo calling President Joe Biden "trash" and "scum" to promoting Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Yang.
Balmer's voter registration in Dauphin County, seen by the Daily Dot, shows that Balmer has no affiliation with any political party.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
The post Man arrested in Josh Shapiro arson case posted about changing the world with Molotov cocktails appeared first on The Daily Dot.