What is known about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband

Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was assaulted a man who broke into the couple’s house in San Francisco early Friday morning and attacked him with a hammer, authorities said.
Paul Pelosi was ‘violently assaulted.’
On Friday, a spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi, Drew Hammill, said in a statement that “an assailant broke into the Pelosi residence in San Francisco and violently assaulted Mr. Pelosi” on Friday morning. Pelosi, 82, was hospitalised but was expected to make a full recovery, Hammill said.
Police arrived at the scene to see the intruder and Pelosi struggling over a hammer before the man attacked Pelosi. Officers “immediately tackled the suspect” and disarmed him, Chief William Scott of the San Francisco police said at a news conference.
The police have a suspect in custody.
San Francisco police said they took a suspect into custody sometime after the break-in, which was reported just before 2.30 am local time, a spokesperson for the department, Officer Robert Rueca, said in a statement. The FBI’s San Francisco office said the suspect is a man.
Law enforcement officials gather on the street in front of Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence, where her husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked an intruder earlier in the morning, on Oct. 28, 2022. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
The attacker was identified as David Depape, 42. Scott said Depape would be charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and “several other additional felonies.”
The Capitol Police said special agents from its field office in California “quickly arrived on scene.” Investigators from the agency’s threat assessment section on the East Coast were dispatched to ass the FBI and the San Francisco police.
The speaker was not home.
Nancy Pelosi was in Washington, DC, with her protective detail at the time of the break-in, the Capitol Police said.
The Pelosis have owned a three-floor red brick town house in San Francisco’s exclusive Pacific Heights neighbourhood since 1987. In January 2021, after Congress passed a stimulus bill, their home was vandalised with graffiti, and a pig’s head was left on the sidewalk. The vandalism occurred before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
A motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi. (Reuters, File Photo)
The motive for the attack on Paul Pelosi was not clear Friday morning, but the assailant was in search of Nancy Pelosi, according to a person briefed on the attack. Before the assault occurred, the intruder confronted Paul Pelosi in their home shouting, “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?”
Since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, members of Congress from both parties have experienced a surge in threats and confrontations, including stalking, armed visits to their homes and assaults.
Who is Paul Pelosi?
Pelosi is a real estate and technology investor. He met Nancy Pelosi at Georgetown University in Washington, and they married in 1963.
He was also in the news in August, when he pleaded guilty to a single count of driving under the influence of alcohol in connection with a car accident in Napa County, California, where the Pelosis own a vineyard. He was sentenced to five days in jail, though he did not have to serve that time, and eight hours of community service.
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Friday that President Joe Biden had called Nancy Pelosi and that he was praying for Paul Pelosi and the Pelosi family. “The president continues to condemn all violence, and asks that the family’s desire for privacy be respected,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement.