For Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro, an arson attack revealed his family’s vulnerability in an age of rising political violence

(CNN) — Cody Balmer stood outside an iron fence surrounding the resolute brick mansion, waiting and watching the home where his target slept. In a bag, he had stuffed two beer bottles filled with gasoline and a weighty metal sledgehammer.

In the early morning hours of April 13, he scaled the fence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s official residence and shattered a window with the sledgehammer, throwing one of his Molotov cocktails inside, prosecutors say.

Windows were already beginning to glow with firelight when Balmer smashed another window and infiltrated the house. He headed to the heart of the home, where Shapiro, his wife and their children slept with more than a dozen overnight guests.

Unable to break through a set of locked doors at the entrance of the sleeping quarters, B