Court releases video of Paul Pelosi hammer attack, adding chilling details

A police officer arrives at the front door of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco in the predawn hours of Oct. 28, 2022, to find her husband Paul pelosi,82 and an intruder standing together

 calmly but awkwardly in the foyer, each clutching opposite ends of a hammer.

Within seconds, the tense quiet is shattered: Ordered to drop the hammer, the intruder briefly scuffles with Pelosi before raising the tool above his head and lunging toward Pelosi. Panicked officers rush inside to try to subdue the assailant, as Pelosi lies motionless on his side making guttural sounds.

The graphic and harrowing scene unfolds in a roughly 90-second clip of police body camera footage released Friday by a San Francisco court in the trial of David DePape the man who has been charged with assaulting Pelosi. The speaker’s husband would go on to spend six days in a San Francisco hospital and undergo surgery for a skull fracture. It was an extraordinary depiction of a brutal act of political violence, which stemmed from an attempt to abduct Nancy Pelosi, who at the time was second in line to the presidency.