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The man suspected of attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer was arraigned on Tuesday.
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He pleaded not guilty to a litany of state charges, including attempted murder and kidnapping.
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A request from the district attorney’s office also provided stark new details about how the attack took place.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi lay unconscious in a pool of his own blood for three minutes after an attacker hit him with full force on the head during a burglary last week.
According to new details from San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, the suspect hit Pelosi with the hammer in front of police officers after Pelosi failed to take the hammer from him.
The defendant, David DePape, pleaded not guilty to several state charges, including attempted murder and attempted kidnapping during a Tuesday arraignment, and he also faces two charges from the United States Department of Justice.
“Clearly this case is vulnerable to misinformation,” Jenkins said outside the San Francisco Superior Court. “This was not a random act of violence and this was not a random home invasion — he was trying to come and harm the speaker of the United States House.”
On Tuesday, the San Francisco District Attorney’s office asked Judge Diane Northway to hold DePape until future hearings.
Northway also signed a protective order forbidding DePape from coming within 150 yards of or contacting Nancy or Paul Pelosi.
In a lawsuit, the DA offered new insight into the incident that took place in the early hours of Friday, October 28. Prosecutors described the graphic scene police witnessed opening Pelosi’s door.
Prosecutors wrote in court that after police reached the residence, Pelosi walked with the attacker to the first floor of his home and was able to open the door for them. The two struggled over the hammer in front of the officers at the doorway before the suspect beat him to death, the file said.
“An officer ordered, ‘Drop the hammer!'” the filing said. “But Mr. Pelosi could not keep his grip on the hammer. A second later, the Defendant yanked the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi, immediately stepped back and sprang toward Mr. Pelosi, hitting Mr. Pelosi on the head with full force with the hammer, which knocked Mr. Pelosi unconscious.”
The filing added that Pelosi was briefly unconscious and started bleeding from his head before medical help arrived.
“The officers ran into the house, arrested the defendant and disarmed him,” the prosecutors wrote. “Mr. Pelosi didn’t respond for about three minutes and woke up in a pool of his own blood.”
Paul Pelosi underwent surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital to “repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” Chairman Pelosi’s office said in a statement last week.
If convicted of attempted state kidnapping, DePape could serve up to 20 years in prison and life if convicted on all state charges.
His public defender has denied all charges against him.
Authorities allege that DePape broke into Pelosi’s home in San Francisco last week in search of house speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was in Washington, DC at the time of the attack. Prosecutors added that DePape opened up to police after being detained without any questioning.
“Defendant said to officers and medics at the scene, ‘I’m tired of the insane level of lies coming out of Washington DC, I came here to chat with his wife,'” the file said. Defendant added: ‘I didn’t really want to hurt him, but you know this was a suicide mission. I’m not going to stand here and do nothing, even if it costs me my life. Hurting him was not my goal . I told him before I attacked him that he escalates things, and I will go through him if I have to.'”
DePape has also previously held conspiratorial views, believing that COVID-19 was a plan devised by the global elite, following QAnon and spreading lies about the 2020 election.
At the Tuesday At the press conference, Jenkins made it clear that she would insist that he be detained during the procedure, calling him “dangerous.”
“I think he’s dangerous,” Jenkins said at the press conference. “This is not representative of the state or security of San Francisco. It is more representative of the state of politics in the United States.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
