The man accused of breaking into the San Francisco home of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer has been charged, but questions remain about what really happened that night. .
David DePape, 42, was charged with attempted murder after he hit Paul Pelosi, 82, with a hammer after he burst into his home, screaming ‘Where’s Nancy?’: The same phrase used by the Capitol protesters on January 6.
It’s been a week since the hammer attack and Pelosi is home recovering from head injuries and major surgery, but many unanswered questions remain.
1. Was a third person involved?
Law enforcement officials confirmed that Paul Pelosi and the suspect, DePape, were the only two people at Pelosi’s residence when police responded.
Paul Pelosi, husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was injured in the hammer attack.
The confusion stemmed from media reports following a press conference on Oct. 28 when San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Chief Bill Scott said that when officers knocked on the front door of the residence of Pelosi, “someone who was inside opened the door” and the agents saw Pelosi and DePape ‘inside the entrance of the house’
There was also confusion over the wording in court documents referring to “another man” when Pelosi was on the phone with 911.
Social media users were quick to post that there was an unknown third person at the scene of the incident. But law enforcement officials told Reuters that Pelosi and DePape were the only two people at Pelosi’s residence at the time.
2. How did DePape get in?
The court filing says DePape broke his shoulder through a glass window early Friday at the back of the Peloses’ home in Pacific Heights and confronted a sleeping Paul, dressed only in boxer shorts and a cotton blouse. Pijama.
While at the scene, DePape looked at the glass door and told investigators that was where he broke into the house. Officers later recovered his bag outside the damaged glass doors. Inside, there was another hammer, a laptop, and more bags of zip ties.
However, some have raised questions about the glass outside the tailgate, which some say appears to have been broken from the inside.
The court filing says DePape crashed his shoulder through a glass window early Friday morning at the back of the Peloses’ home in Pacific Heights, wearing only his boxer shorts and a pajama top.
In a segment of the BlazeTV podcast ‘What We Know So Far’, Glenn Beck questioned the back door being broken:
“It appears to be broken from the inside,” he noted. ‘I mean I saw enough Colombo, excuse me sir, one more thing when the glass is on the inside of the door and not on the outside of the door, but we don’t know what kind of glass it was. . . we have no idea.
Another question is how DePape got into the house with his wife third in line for the presidency.
The San Francisco Police Department often stationed a patrol at Pelosi’s home, particularly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill, but no patrol was present at the home during the attack.
Speaker Pelosi was in Washington at the time and under the protection of her security team, which does not extend to family members. She quickly returned to San Francisco, where her husband was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a fractured skull and other injuries.
3. What exactly happened when the police arrived on the scene?
San Francisco Police Officers Kolby Wilmes and Kyle Cagney were dispatched to the residence of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Paul Pelosi around 2:27 a.m. on Friday, October 28 for a Welfare check ‘priority A’.
when they sounded The doorbell rang, DePape told Pelosi not to answer the door, but Pelosi did so with her left hand anyway.
Pelosi and DePape stood in the dimly lit lobby and looked at the officers as Pelosi calmly waved to them, according to the police report.
When one of the officers asked the men what was going on, DePape replied “everything is fine” and put his hands to his body.
When an officer switched on his flashlight, DePape could be seen holding the lower handle of the hammer with one hand and Pelosi’s right arm with the other. Pelosi’s right hand was also on the handle of the hammer.
When an officer ordered the men to ‘drop the hammer,’ DePape raised the hammer and said, ‘um, no,’ as he tried to take it from Pelosi, who exclaimed, ‘hey, hey!’
DePape then gained control and struck Pelosi’s head, rendering her unconscious. Officers immediately tackled DePape and arrested him.
4. How could he have attacked while the police were already there?
The two responding officers witnessed DePape hit Pelosi with the hammer at least once, hitting him in the head, according to the court filing. The assault was also captured on officers’ body cameras.
David DePape, 42, was charged with attempted murder after he hit Pelosi with a hammer after she burst into his home and yelled “Where’s Nancy?”
5. What exactly are DePape’s policies?
While reports indicate that DePape was a deranged far-right conspiracy theorist, neighbors noted that his politics were much more confusing.
They said he had Black Live Matter flags and an LGBT rainbow flag outside his home, but also said any liberal leanings seemed superficial and performative.
His social networks showed that he published conspiracy theories about the origins of the covid epidemic, about the validity of the 2020 elections and about the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Many of DePape’s social media posts were filled with tirades against Jews, Blacks, Democrats, the media and transgender people, in categories like “Transgender,” “Da Jewbs,” and “Great Reboot.”
In late August, DePape appeared to be engrossed in Twitter’s decision to ban Jordan Peterson for his posts about transgender people after the Canadian psychologist compared being transgender to “satanic ritual abuse.”
Most recently, amid a backlash to rapper Kanye West’s tweet declaring war on the Jewish people, DePape posted: “We are ALL the slave race of the Jews.”
In the past month alone, DePape had published hundreds of blog posts promoting far-right conspiracy theories before he allegedly broke into Pelosi’s home, the Boston Globe reports.
DePape was also active on 4chan, posting memes and debating with other anonymous users about his beliefs.
