Attack on Speaker Pelosi’s husband increases fears of political violence

In the early hours of Friday morning, the intruder entered through a back door of the stately home in San Francisco’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood, yelling, “Where is Nancy?”
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, was thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C., protected her security detail, but her husband, 82-year-old Paul Pelosi, was home. the time police officers arrived after being dispatched at 2:27 a.m., they found the assailant and Paul Pelosi wrestling for control of a hammer. The intruder then pulled the hammer away and “violently attacked” Paul Pelosi with it in front of the officers, said William Scott, San Francisco’s chief of police.
As leaders from across the political spectrum rushed to condemn the attack, Paul Pelosi underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and other injuries. He remained in a San Francisco hospital Friday afternoon and was expected to make a full recovery, according to Nancy Pelosi’s office.
While police said they were still investigating the motive and were questioning a suspect they had in custody, the incident heightened fears of political violence less than two weeks before the midterm elections. The assault came as threats and violence against political figures have surged in America, especially after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which brought the Democratic speaker, other lawmakers and the Republican vice president within feet of rioters threatening their lives.
A police car can be seen parked outside the home of Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in San Francisco, Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. (AP)
“This was not a random act,” Scott said. “This was intentional.”
Police identified the attacker as 42-year-old David DePape, and Scott said the man would be charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and “several other additional felonies.” The suspect remained in the hospital as of Friday evening with undisclosed injuries.
Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco drict attorney, said authorities were looking into whether blog posts someone using the same name as the suspect that contain hateful comments were linked to him and might speak to his motive. In an interview, she said that she was aware of the social media and blog posts that were circulating and that authorities were investigating everything.
Two blogs written a user who called himself “daviddepape” contain an array of angry and paranoid postings, including antisemitic sentiments and concerns about pedophilia, anti-white racism and “elite” control of the internet. Law enforcement authorities, including Jenkins, have not said whether the blogs — or a Facebook page bearing the same name — were written the same DePape who is accused of assaulting Pelosi.
Members of both parties have faced stalking, armed visits to their homes, vandalism and assaults. Pelosi, as speaker, is well protected a security detail, but family members of congressional leaders do not receive protection on their own.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has been the subject of threats and had a window broken at her home, said in a statement that she “was horrified this vicious attack on Paul Pelosi at his home.” She recently told The New York Times that she would not be surprised if a lawmaker were killed, given the environment of escalating threats.
Speaking at a political event in Pennsylvania, President Joe Biden said Friday that he had spoken to Nancy Pelosi to “send our love,” and that she relayed that her husband was “coming along well.”
Flowers can be seen outside the home of Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in San Francisco, Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. (AP)
“There’s too much violence,” Biden said. “Political violence. Too much hatred. Too much vitriol. And what makes us think that one party can talk about stolen elections, COVID being a hoax, it’s all a bunch of lies, and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?”

Not every elected leader reacted to the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi in a solemn tone. At a political rally Friday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican, seemed to minimize the attack on Paul Pelosi, saying, “There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send her back to be with him in California.”
For San Francisco, the break-in and assault comes at a time when the city is awash in crises over crime and disorder in the streets, where open-air drug dealing is commonplace and concerns over burglaries, especially in wealthy neighborhoods, helped fuel the successful recall of the city’s avowed progressive drict attorney, Chesa Boudin, this year.
The Pelosis have owned a three-story red-brick house in the Pacific Heights neighborhood since 1987, and Friday’s incident was not the first time their home had become a crime scene. In January 2021, after Congress passed a stimulus bill, their residence was vandalized with graffiti, and a pig’s head was left on the sidewalk.
Paul Pelosi, a real estate and technology investor, met Nancy Pelosi in Washington while he was studying at Georgetown University, and the couple married in 1963. A spokesperson for the speaker, who rushed back to San Francisco on Friday and arrived at the hospital in the afternoon, said in a statement that Paul Pelosi was “receiving excellent medical care” at the hospital.
Multiple law enforcement agencies were investigating the attack Friday to determine the suspect’s motive. The Capitol Police said special agents from its field office in California “quickly arrived on the scene” to work alongside the FBI, the San Francisco Police Department, the drict attorney and the U.S. attorney’s office.
It was Pelosi who surreptitiously called 911 from the bathroom while the assailant was in the house, bringing police to the scene and potentially saving his life, Jenkins said.
Jenkins said a quick-thinking emergency dispatcher alerted police while having “to interpret the situation based on some things that he said,” and inferring that “there was something amiss.”
As threats against lawmakers have skyrocketed in recent years, few have faced the level of vitriol that Nancy Pelosi has. The speaker has been demonized for years people on the right, and with increasing ferocity.
Even as law enforcement officials said Friday that they hadn’t confirmed a motive, one person briefed on the attack said the assailant was searching for Nancy Pelosi. Before the assault occurred, the intruder confronted Paul Pelosi, shouting, “Where is Nancy? Where are you, Nancy?”
David Depape is shown in Berkeley, Calif.,on Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. An intruder attacked and severely beat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer in the couple’s San Francisco home early Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, while searching for the Democratic leader. (AP)
The words were eerily similar to the threats made against Nancy Pelosi as a mob loyal to former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, breaking into her office as her staff barricaded themselves in an interior room.
“Where are you, Nancy? We’re looking for you!” one man shouted that day, as the mob rampaged through the building. “Nancy! Oh, Nancy! Where are you, Nancy?”
Shortly after the Jan. 6 attack, the FBI arrested a man in Washington for threatening to assassinate Nancy Pelosi, after he said he wanted to put a “bullet” in her head on live television.
A toxic stream of online conspiracy theories has fueled the rise in threats, including the QAnon movement, misinformation about the 2020 election and fearmongering about vaccines and immigrants.
In the five years since Trump was elected in 2016, the number of recorded threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold, to 9,625 in 2021, according to the Capitol Police. Many lawmakers say they live with a sense of dread after experiencing their own horror stories, such as the time someone smashed a window at a politician’s home or when an angry man showed up with a gun.
In San Francisco, the attack forced the shutdown of the stately block in Pacific Heights where the Pelosis live, as police cordoned off the area with crime-scene tape and patrol cars with flashing lights.
The neighborhood is one of the most affluent in a city suffused with Silicon Valley wealth. Many residents pay a private service, Pacific Heights Security, to protect their homes at night, supplementing the city police.
Pantea Grover, 40, was leaving her house across the street from the Pelosi residence about 8 a.m., on her way to a gym. She said she was rattled the attack, not only because she felt bad for Paul Pelosi but also because it contributed to residents’ ongoing concerns about crime.
“We know Paul, we think he’s an absolute great guy,” Grover said. “This is just so sad and frustrating at this point.”