Key security questions remain unanswered in arson at Governor's residence

It remained unclear how a man evaded security to firebomb the Pennsylvania Governor’s residence in an attack that was decried by elected officials and religious leaders.

But the attack is merely the latest in what appears to be a rising tide of violence against elected officials that include the July 13 and Sept. 15, 2024, assassination attempts against President Donald Trump and the 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“We live in a world where people are emboldened to act violently on their political beliefs. It’s a new and very real threat,” said retired U.S. Secret Service agent Jeff James.

James, of Mars in Butler County, is chief of Robert Morris University’s police department in Moon. He worked as a secret service agent for 22 years, starting in 1996 during President Bill Clinton and retiring in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office.

The Sunday morning attack was carried out hours after Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family celebrated a Passover Seder by a Harrisburg man said to be off his psychiatric medication who harbored hatred for Shapiro and planned to attack the governor with a hammer if he encountered him, according to court papers.

“It’s impossible not to have safety concerns because we are in a time when there is no daylight between the senseless act that took place at the Governor’s Residence and the escalating political rancor displayed by activist groups,” said Pa. Sen. President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield.

“What occurred was an intolerable act and simply unacceptable,” Ward said.

It will invariably be dissected by authorities, James said.

“Through the Secret Service lens something like this would be viewed as a huge failure,” he said.

Pennsylvania State Police are tasked with providing the governor’s security detail.

Shapiro’s immediate predecessor, Tom Wolf, paid for his own security detail. Former Gov. Tom Corbett’s security cost about $3 million per year, according to a report from PennLive.

Providing security is more than being a being a bodyguard, James said.

“These protective details really need to listen to the intelligence they’re getting,” he said.

Investigating every threat takes time and resources, he said.

In this case, it appears the attack was planned and the man exploited something like a shift change or other lapse in the security to start the fire, James said.

State police wouldn’t reveal details about the governor’s security detail because of what it called operational security concerns.

“We don’t know the person’s specific motive yet,” Shapiro said at a news conference. “But we do know a few truths. First: This type of violence is not OK. This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society. And I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other, directed at one particular party or another or one particular person or another. It is not OK, and it has to stop. We have to be better than this.”

Other elected officials, including Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato have security details and some legislators uses security as needed, they said, declining to provide details because they would pose security concerns.

Threats and even acts of violence are nothing new to politics, former state Rep. Rod Wilt, R-Mercer County, told TribLive.

Wilt served from 1996 to 2006 and was a third-generation state lawmaker. Neither he, nor his forebears, used bodyguards or felt the need for them.

“Although the front door of our house did take a shotgun blast from a disgruntled truck driver upset about the Teamsters strike in 1976,” Wilt told TribLive. “I was 12 years old. My dad was in the state house at the time.”

His father, Roy Wilt Sr., was in Harrisburg when it happened, and the rest of the family were asleep and weren’t hurt.

“Pretty crazy time,” Rod Wilt said. “It’s ancient history now, but my dad never told the police… Dad replaced the screen door and the front door and that was it.”

The arson over the weekend brought it to mind, he said.