County officials confirmed that the 911 dispatcher mishandled the call.
On April 13th, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion in an attack that resulted in extensive damage to the structure. State police woke Shapiro and his family inside to take them to safety as the fire spread.
Cody Balmer, 38, allegedly firebombed the residence that night. He called 911 after carrying out the attack.
The call took place around 2:50am on Sunday and lasted for one minute and twelve seconds.
In the audio released from the call, he can be heard referencing Governor Shapiro’s “plans” for the “Palestinian people.” According to the audio, Balmer’s voice was rather calm, and he hung up before the operator could respond.
In the audio, he said, “I don’t really have an emergency. I would like to apologize.” He said, “Gov. Josh Shapiro needs to know that Cody Balmer will not take part in his plan for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people. He needs to leave my family alone.”
“He needs to stop having my friends killed. Our people have been put through too much by that monster,” he continued.
He said he wished “no harm onto anyone.” In the recording, he confessed, “But that man, that man is doing serious, serious harm to probably yourself included. And I do wish you the best, sir. You all know where to find me. I’m not hiding, and I do confess to everything I’ve done.”
According to county officials, the 911 dispatcher who received the call did not properly “escalate” the call after taking it. According to Eric Hagarty, Dauphin County’s chief clerk and chief of staff, the caller “did not appropriately escalate the call in accordance with County policy.”
In a statement, Hagarty said, “Although this error in judgement on the part of the operator did not result in any further harm to anyone, we take the mistake extremely seriously and it is being addressed internally according with our human resources policies.”
Hagarty concluded the statement, saying, “We will not be commenting further on this personnel matter specifically.”
