Attack on Paul Pelosi

Attack on Paul Pelosi
American businessman Paul Pelosi in June 2022
Location	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Date	October 28, 2022 (2022-10-28) c. 2:27 a.m. (PDT)
Target	Nancy Pelosi
Attack type	Attempted homicide by bludgeoning, attempted assassination, home invasion, assault with a deadly weapon
Weapons	Hammer
Injured	Paul Pelosi
Accused	David DePape
Charges	Various federal and state charges, including attempted murder and attempted kidnapping of a federal official; see below for details

On October 28, 2022, an assailant attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, with a hammer during a home invasion at the couple's California residence. Pelosi was seriously injured and underwent surgery for a fractured skull. David DePape, a 42-year-old Canadian citizen living in California, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted homicide and other felonies. DePape reportedly planned to take Speaker Pelosi hostage and state prosecutors believe the attack to be politically motivated.

Prior to the attack, DePape had embraced various far-right political conspiracy theories, including QAnon and Pizzagate. Online, he made conspiratorial, racist, sexist, and antisemitic posts, and pushed COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and Holocaust denial. On October 31, DePape was charged with two federal crimes: assault of an immediate family member of a federal official with the intent to retaliate against the official on account of the performance of official duties; and attempted kidnapping of a federal official on account of the performance of official duties. He was also charged with six state felonies, including attempted murder, residential burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon.

Incident

The San Francisco home of Paul and Nancy Pelosi

During a police interview, David DePape said that he had gained access to the Pelosi residence by breaking through glass-paneled doors at the rear of the house. Subsequent police body-worn camera footage showed the broken glass on the ground. At the time of the break-in, Paul Pelosi was sleeping in the third-floor bedroom of the home. The intruder woke Pelosi and demanded to speak to "Nancy"; when Pelosi said that she was not home, the intruder said he would wait.

Seeking help from police, Pelosi told the intruder that he needed to use the bathroom, then he made a secret 9-1-1 call on his cellphone at 2:23 a.m. PDT. He left the line open, saying, "What's going on? Why are you here? What are you going to do to me?" These statements prompted the 9-1-1 dispatcher to send police to Pelosi's aid for a wellness check, which was credited with saving his life.

San Francisco Police Department officers quickly arrived at the Pelosi residence. knocking on the door at 2:31 a.m. PDT. Pelosi ran to the door and opened it. From outside the house, police observed DePape and Pelosi struggling for a hammer at the entryway. After police ordered the two men to drop the weapon, DePape took the hammer and "violently attacked" the 82-year-old Pelosi with a single blow; the assailant was reportedly shouting, "Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?" Police then tackled and arrested DePape. After arresting the intruder, police discovered multiple zip ties, duct tape, white rope, a second hammer, and rubber and cloth gloves in his backpack. According to investigators, DePape had a list of additional potential targets.

Following the attack, Pelosi underwent surgery to treat a skull fracture at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. He also received treatment for serious injuries to his hands and right arm. As of October 31, Pelosi was still in intensive care recovering. DePape suffered some minor injuries and was also taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. After being discharged, DePape was taken to the San Francisco County Jail.

Nancy Pelosi was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the attack. She rushed back to San Francisco on a government airplane, and a motorcade escorted her to the hospital where her husband was being treated. The following day, she wrote a "Dear Colleague" letter to members of the House of Representatives, saying that her extended family was "heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack" and thanking law enforcement, emergency services, and hospital staff for aiding her husband.

Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the San Francisco Police Department, the United States Capitol Police, and the U.S. Attorney's and San Francisco District Attorney's Offices are involved in the investigation into the attack. The San Francisco Police Department appealed to the public for tips regarding the attack.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said that the attack appeared to be politically motivated, based on statements and comments made by DePape on the night of the attack.

After being Mirandized, DePape gave an interview to San Francisco Police Department officers in which he said he planned to hold Nancy hostage and that he saw her as the "leader of the pack" of lies told by the Democratic Party. He said that he considered himself to be fighting "tyranny" and likened himself to the American founding fathers. DePape told the police that he planned to kidnap and interrogate Nancy, and would break her kneecaps if she "lied" to him, believing that by doing so, "she would then have to be wheeled into Congress" as a "warning" to other members of Congress.

The day after the attack, investigators searched a garage in Richmond, California, where DePape had lived for the previous two years, pursuant to a federal search warrant. Investigators reported seizing "two hammers, a sword, and a pair of rubber and cloth gloves" from the property.

Before the attack, DePape was not known to the U.S. Capitol Police and was not on any federal database tracking threats.

Accused

David Wayne DePape, age 42, was arrested at the scene of the attack.

Life prior to the attack

DePape grew up in British Columbia, Canada; he lived in Powell River before finishing high school in Armstrong. Shortly after high school, he moved to the U.S., entering the country in 2000. He first moved to Hawaii, where he met Gypsy Taub, then moved with her to California. DePape became estranged from his family around that time. In 2022, his sister said that he had "faded from her life" 20 years before. She commented that DePape was, at that time, a "sweet, shy boy" who "got involved with a crazy person." Taub went on to become one the most prominent faces of the 2013 San Francisco public nudity movement; DePape remained part of her circle. In addition to embracing nudist activism, DePape supported the Green Party prior to 2014. Scott Wiener (who was a city supervisor in 2013, and later a state senator) recalled that Taub and DePape were part of a subgroup of "extremely aggressive and creepy" public nudists who "were in a different category" than the regular nudist activists. DePape was later a groomsman in Taub's wedding to Jamyz Smith and lived for some years with Taub, Smith, and her three children.

One acquaintance said she had cut off contact with DePage in 2012, after he displayed megalomaniac behavior and sent her multiple emails likening himself to Jesus Christ. Taub described DePape returning home after about a year, identifying with Jesus, and exhibiting extreme paranoia; she said DePape "has been mentally ill for a long time". Afterwards, DePape lived in a storage unit in Berkeley, where one neighbor said he was a user of hard drugs. DePape visited Taub occasionally throughout those years. At the time of the attack, he had been a resident of Richmond, California for three years, living in a rented garage next to a home there. In the six years prior to his arrest, DePape had worked as a helper for a man who builds patio decks.

Social media activity

According to Politico, DePape "inhabited a vivid and resentment-fueled world of conspiracy while living a fringe existence". In 2007, DePape started a personal blog, initially writing about topics such as spirituality and ibogaine. During the months that preceded the attack, DePape resumed writing on his blog after a long hiatus, this time on conspiracy theories and alt-right politics. In multiple posts on social media platforms and at least two blogs, a user with DePape's name and address espoused far-right views, promoting QAnon, Pizzagate, and other far-right conspiracy theories and sharing far-right Internet memes. Law enforcement sources have been "increasingly confident" that these social media posts "are [indeed] from the suspect". DePape's daughter confirmed that DePape was the author of the blog, and that he at times had shared links with her and posting text-message conversations with her.

In 2021, DePape had posted videos by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell that falsely claimed the 2020 U.S. presidential election to have been stolen; across 2022, he linked to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation videos (claiming that the vaccines were deadly and that data was covered up) and alleged George Floyd had died of a drug overdose rather than being murdered by a police officer. He credited Gamergate, Jordan Peterson, and James A. Lindsay, for his interest in right-wing politics. One month before the attack, a website written under DePape's name declared that any journalist who challenged Trump's election fraud claims "should be dragged straight out into the street and shot". DePape also attacked immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, social justice warriors, Catholics, and Muslims. He wrote a post in which he proclaimed that Adolf Hitler "did nothing wrong" and promoted a range of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including denying the Holocaust and accusing Jews of orchestrating the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. DePape's online posts also included a range of delusional comments, once attacking Jesus as "the antichrist" and including references to his communication with invisible fairies and the occult. His last post, published a day before the attack, was titled "Why Colleges are becoming Cults".

Experts on extremism and terrorism said that DePape's shifts in views (from left-wing fringe movements in 2013 to the far-right in the eight years preceding the attack) is an example of "side switching," a fairly common phenomenon among persons radicalized online. Experts noted that extremists sometimes shift between "mutually exclusive or hostile ideologies" through "bridging areas" common to various fringe ideologies, such as antisemitism and anti-government/anti-establishment sentiment.

State and federal charges

On October 31, federal prosecutors charged DePape with "attempted kidnapping of a federal official in the performance of official duties" and "assaulting an immediate member of a federal official's family and inflicting a serious injury with a dangerous weapon". On the same day, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office filed state charges against DePape, including six felonies: attempted murder, residential burglary, elder abuse, assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment of an elder, and threatening the family member of public official.

DePape is expected to be arraigned on the state charges in San Francisco Superior Court on November 1.

Reactions

President Joe Biden expressed support for the Pelosi family, and said there was too much political violence, hatred, and vitriol. Biden compared the attack on Paul Pelosi with the January 6 Capitol attack, and stated that Republicans talking about "stolen elections" and "Covid being a hoax" may "affect people who may not be so well balanced". Vice President Kamala Harris blamed the current political climate for inspiring the attack. California Governor Gavin Newsom said the "heinous attack" on Pelosi was "yet another example of the dangerous consequences of the divisive and hateful rhetoric that is putting lives at risk and undermining our very democracy". San Francisco Mayor London Breed called the attack a "horrific and scary incident", offering her support to Pelosi's family and thanking the first responders. The attack and broader concerns of violence and threats prompted calls from members of Congress to increase security.

Elected officials across the political spectrum condemned the attack. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "What happened to Paul Pelosi was a dastardly act." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote that he was "horrified and disgusted by the reports that Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his and Speaker Pelosi's home last night". House minority whip Steve Scalise, who was seriously wounded in the 2017 congressional baseball shooting, called the attack "horrific" and said "violence has no place in this country". Outgoing Representative Liz Cheney wrote, "Reports about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi are horrific and deeply troubling." The attack was condemned by, among others, Senators Bernie Sanders (independent of Vermont) and Ted Cruz (Republican of Texas).

Republican officials sent mixed messages on the attack, prompting criticism from Democrats. Many Republicans denounced the attack, though others spread conspiracy theories about it. Some Republicans who condemned the attack issued statements criticizing "both sides" for violent rhetoric and political violence. Three days after the attack, former president Donald Trump said, "With Paul Pelosi, that's a terrible thing". Top Republican officials, such as Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Tom Emmer, rejected assertions that inflammatory Republican rhetoric, including vilification and hatred of Nancy Pelosi, contributed to an atmosphere that risked violence. A week before the attack, Emmer posted a video of himself firing a gun with the hashtag #FirePelosi; after the attack, he deflected a question asking if he should have used a gun in the ad. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor of Virginia, said, "There's no room for violence anywhere, but we're gonna send Nancy Pelosi back to be with him in California", a remark that attracted controversy.

Misinformation and disinformation

In the aftermath of the attack, prominent right-wing figures shared misinformation and disinformation about the attack. Within days of the attack, the baseless claims had spread among the Republican mainstream; with The New York Times noting that the claims "appeared intended to deflect attention from Mr. DePape's views." Phillip Bump, an analyst with the The Washington Post, wrote that "the narrative that gained the most traction" among Republicans was that the attack was linked to "a rise in crime in San Francisco and, by extension, in many cities with Democratic leaders".

Citing a right-wing fake news website, Elon Musk baselessly suggested that Paul Pelosi may have been drunk and fighting with a male prostitute. Musk's tweet occurred days after his acquisition of Twitter. He deleted his tweet hours later, after it had already amassed 24,000 retweets and 86,000 likes.

Right-wing figures who spread misinformation about the attack included Roger Stone, Dinesh D'Souza, and Steve Bannon, all of whom baselessly implied that the attack could be a "false flag". Republican congressman Clay Higgins, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump Jr., and David Clarke Jr. all disseminated other unfounded conspiracy theories about the attack. Conservative talk radio host Charlie Kirk called for an "amazing patriot" from among his audience to "be a midterm hero" by deciding to "bail out" DePape.

Further reading

• "Read our full coverage of the violent attack on Paul Pelosi". Los Angeles Times. October 28, 2022. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
• "Man Charged with Assault and Attempted Kidnapping Following Breaking and Entering of Pelosi Residence" (Press release). United States Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs. October 31, 2022. Archived from the original on October 31, 2022. Retrieved October 31, 2022.