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At long last, forced by a judge, the San Francisco/federal establishment has released at least some of the video–and audio–relating to the attack on Paul Pelosi. Take this link to the Powerline article, which features a black and white video of DePape breaking in, the audio of Pelosi’s 911 call, and the body camera video of the police arriving at Pelosi’s home. To find every article—I’ve written three previous articles—on this situation, enter “paul pelosi” into the SMM home page search bar. The materials finally released seem to answer some of the unanswered questions, but leave some unanswered and raise more.

Breaking In: This black and white video, only 2:14 long, contains multiple jump cuts; we’re not seeing the whole thing, and we have no way to know what has been edited out—or why. It begins with DePape wandering into the frame and scoping things out. After an obvious jump cut, he returns with two (?!) backpacks. After another jump cut, he takes what appear to be latex gloves and a hammer out of the larger backpack, puts the gloves on, and begins to clumsily beat on the glass. The video ends shortly after DePape pushes, backward, through the broken glass.

One of my prior concerns was the amount of the glass outside the doors, rather than inside. The video depicts DePape repeatedly breaking though glass panes, and having to pull the hammer back out, likely pulling glass with it, though we can’t clearly see the ground, and have no way to know if what is visible would account for the unusual amount of glass on the ground outside, rather than inside, the doors. By the way, the camera is partially obscured by what appears to be a swarm of insects.

The 911 Call: The call is odd indeed. We still have no idea why DePape allowed Pelosi to make the call. The recording is 2:14. What follows is my own transcription. It begins:

Dispatcher (hereinafter “D”): “San Francisco Police 74.”

Paul Pelosi (hereinafter “PP”): “I guess I, I guess I called by mistake. What is it?”

D: “San Francisco Police; do you need help?”

PP: “Uh, well, there’s a gentleman here just waiting for my wife to come back. Nancy Pelosi. He’s just waiting for her to come back, but she’s not going to be here for a day. So I guess we’ll have to wait.”

D: “OK, do you need, police, fire or medical for anything?”

PP: “Uh, I don’t think so; I don’t think so.”

By this point, any competent dispatcher should be getting suspicious.

D: “Hello?”

PP: “Uh, uh, the uh, the uh, is the Capitol Police around? They’re usually here protecting my wife. They are usually here at the house protecting my wife—uh—no, no, no. This gentleman just came into the house, and he wants to wait here for my wife to come home. And so, uh, anyway, he’s told me to put the phone down.”

D: “Do you know, do you know who the person is?”

PP: “No I don’t know who he is. He has, uh, he has this leash on me. He told me uh, he told me not to do anything. Anyways this gentleman say that…he thinks everything…he told me to put the phone down and uh, do what he says. Okay?”

By this point, any competent dispatcher should be suspecting a hostage situation–“he has this leash on me”–and sending plenty of vehicles to that address. There is no indication of any of that.

D: “Okay. So who what’s the gentleman’s name?”

David DePape (hereinafter “DD”): “DePape. My name’s David.”

That, by itself, gentle readers, is very odd. Hostage takers don’t normally identify themselves.

PP: “The name’s David.”

D: “And who is David?”

PP: “I don’t know. What’s that…?”

Again, why isn’t the dispatcher raising an alarm by this point?

DD: “I’m a friend of theirs.”

PP: “I, I, he says he’s a friend, but as I said…(dispatcher interrupts).”

D: “But you don’t know who he is?”

At this point I was yelling at the recording: “Good God woman; get a clue!”

PP: “No, no Ma’am.”

D (unsure): “….Okay…”

PP: “He’s telling me I’m being very leading, so I’ve got to stop talking to you, Okay?”

D: “Okay. You sure, I can stay on the phone with you to make sure everything’s Okay…”

PP: “No, well, he wants me to get the hell off the phone. Okay?”

D: “Okay.”

PP: “Okay, thank you. Goodbye.”

Do you see what I mean by unanswered questions and new questions, gentle readers? Good dispatchers can save lives; poor dispatchers can cost lives. Pelosi sounds reasonably calm, and one can infer he’s trying to tip off the dispatcher without making DePape attack him, but again, there is much we don’t know. What’s certain is any competent dispatcher would have sent multiple units immediately to investigate a possible kidnapping or hostage situation.

As I always note, working from media accounts is problematic. Those accounts suggested Pelosi named DePape and called him a friend. It’s now clear DePape named himself and Pelosi said he was not a friend.

The Police Response: This video is only 1:39 long. It begins with the body cam view of an officer taking what appears to be a leisurely walk to Pelosi’s front door. The two officers can be heard talking, but it’s hard to understand what they’re saying. The body cam-wearing officer knocks on the door, and at 18 seconds, turns 180 degrees, putting his back to the door (?!). He does not turn back around until about 34 seconds. Why the question/exclamation? Any officer expecting trouble would never turn his back on a door. What was he told about why he was going to that residence? Why was he willing to turn his back and apparently idly gaze around for 16 seconds—an eternity if trouble starts?

The door opens and there stands Pelosi in boxers and a long sleeved shirt. DePape is at his right, and they are both very obviously struggling over a hammer, but DePape has both hands in the struggle while Pelosi has only his right hand on the hammer. In his left hand, the hand he apparently used to open the door, is a drink of some kind?!

It was originally reported after opening the door, Pelosi expressed no alarm to the police, did not try to run, and stepped several steps back into the house toward DePape. He did not step back, but the rest was accurate. An officer:

“How yah doin’?

DD: “How are yah?”

Off: “What’s goin’ on man?”

DD: “Everything’s good.”

At this point, the struggle for the hammer becomes more obvious and intense, though to any competent police officer, two men fighting for control of a hammer at any level should be an immediate call to action. An officer trains his flashlight on both of them, but that wasn’t absolutely necessary. It was dark outside, and Pelosi and DePape were standing in enough light to clearly see what was happening. Possibly, they wanted to be sure the hammer wasn’t something else, like a gun? Except for this:

PP: Hi.

Off: Drop the hammer.

DD: “Um, nope.”

DePape is now working hard to wrench the hammer from Pelosi, who staggers toward him saying:

PP: “Hey, hey hey…”

As DePape wrenchs the hammer from Pelosi, Pelosi, at 50 seconds, tries to run to his left/the officer’s right, away from DePape, out of view of the camera. Simultaneously, the officer says:

“What is going on there?”

DePape immediately pursues Pelosi, and swings the hammer violently overhead, as he chases Pelosi.

Off: “Oh, oh, oh shit!”

Both officers immediately rush in. They restrain DePape on the floor, call for backup, and Pelosi can be seen, his head toward the officers, out on the floor. Handcuffs come into view and an officer can be heard:

“Give me your fuckin hands; give me your fuckin’ hands.”

There is some radio traffic, and an odd, gurgling groan, apparently coming from Pelosi, is heard. A dispatcher asks if they want medical help, and the officer responds:

“Affirmative.”

The video ends at that point. Why at that point, where DePape hasn’t said anything else, we have no idea. The damage to Pelosi, who was apparently lying in a pool of blood, is never shown.

The video demonstrates one of the many problems with body cameras: they’re not mounted on a stable platform. When the officer is running, or struggling, it’s hard to make out anything with clarity. The biggest question not raised by selective editing is why did those officers stand there watching, asking inane questions, as DePape, who was clearly the much younger, bigger and stronger of the two, increasingly viciously tried to wrench the hammer from Pelosi? Why did they wait to intervene—“Oh, oh, oh shit!”—until DePape had already caved Pelosi’s skull in with the hammer?

Were I those officer’s supervisor, and I have been in that position, I would be asking “what the hell were you thinking? Why did you just stand there watching?” More momentarily, but consider this from Fox News:

David DePape, Paul Pelosi’s attacker, called a California Fox local news station from jail on Friday and made bizarre and chilling statements that he called an ‘important message.’

On the call, which KTVU had permission to record, DePape said ‘you’re welcome’ for the Paul Pelosi attack. [skip]

Despite saying he didn’t want to jeopardize his case, DePape told KTVU he attacked Pelosi because ‘liberty isn’t dying, it’s being killed systematically and deliberately.’

The ‘people killing it have names and addresses, so I got their names and addresses so I could pay them a little visit … have a heart-to-heart chat about their bad behavior,’ he asserted.

DePape also made a chilling apology for not going further.

‘I want to apologize to everyone. I messed up. What I did was really bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them. It’s my own fault. No one else is to blame. I should have come better prepared,’ he said.

He also claimed to have a website with ‘a lot more to say’ but said authorities had taken the website down.

Final Thoughts: By all means, take the link and compare the videos and audio track to what I’ve presented here. Those materials seem to make a clean case for prosecutors. But if so, why did they so stubbornly resist releasing these materials that appear to clearly make their case? They reportedly argued they didn’t want to prejudice the case for any jury, but this is San Francisco. They know they’re going to get an entirely leftist jury who will convict on Nancy Pelosi’s name alone. What about interfering with an ongoing investigation?  This one was in the bag long ago.  One perpetrator, one victim, no witnesses–other than the bystander police–all physical evidence in one place–what’s to investigate?  And why the jump cuts in the video of DePape preparing, and breaking the glass? How much time did he actually spend before breaking out the glass, and what was he doing during that time? Why the selective editing of the police response?

Why didn’t Pelosi, who appeared to be relatively calm, and/or increasingly in shock, run toward the police instead of to his left?

The SFPD did not exactly cover itself in glory in this incident.

It seems obvious DePape is deranged, but probably not sufficiently incapacitated to be incapable of standing trial. It will be interesting to learn if DePape was drugged. It would be equally interesting to learn if Pelosi was drugged, though I doubt that will ever be known. There have been suggestions of homosexuality on Pelosi’s part. If so, these materials do nothing to support or debunk them.

The lamestream media’s continuing disinterest in the case–other than publicizing the ravings of D/S/C lunatics–would normally give one reason to suspect there is more going on than a simple case of a crazy guy breaking in and assaulting Pelosi, but that disinterest may be nothing more than a reflexive protecting of a prominent D/S/C politician.

There is still a great deal unknown, which to be absolutely fair is common in most criminal cases. Citizens virtually never get the full investigation. Unless DePape demands a trial, and refuses to take a plea bargain, we’ll never know all the details, and probably not even then.

More as it develops.