U.S. Capitol Police officers were reportedly not monitoring the cameras around House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-CA) home in San Francisco when a man broke in and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer on Friday.
An officer in Washington, D.C., only seemed to notice something when seeing police lights flashing outside the abode, pulling up additional camera angles and backtracking to see the break-in, officials told the Washington Post. This was as a “handful” of officers in the Capitol Police command center were shifting through feeds from 1,800 cameras from the Capitol complex and beyond, the report said.
ALLEGED PELOSI ATTACKER DAVID DEPAPE PLEADS NOT GUILTY IN COURT APPEARANCE
Current and former law enforcement officials told the news outlet that Capitol Police monitoring cameras can be the best chance for a home attack against a member of Congress to be stopped.
However, in this case, Nancy Pelosi had returned to Washington taking with her much of her around-the-clock security detail, which coincided with officers in Washington putting a stop to constant monitoring of the video feeds from around her house, the report said.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger was cited in the report stressing that the force is working to hire 280 more officers this year amid a charged “political climate” and that the department would focus on adding “redundancies” to security measures for congressional leaders.
The report also said officials with the San Francisco Police Department declined repeated requests for comment on security measures around the Pelosi home, including about whether there is an alarm system that could have alerted the department.
At the same time, the report cited sources who said the Pelosi home is protected by a private security system, and it should alert San Francisco police as well as the Capitol Police when triggered. But one of these sources claimed Capitol Police never got such an alert. The report said it was unclear if the alarm system was armed at the time of the break-in early Friday morning.
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A man brandishing a hammer broke a glass door and entered the home, sources told the outlet. David DePape, 42, has been identified by authorities as the suspect who broke in and allegedly stormed into Paul Pelosi’s bedroom, seeking out the speaker. Paul Pelosi, 82, managed to call the police, and when officers arrived, DePape hit him with a hammer on the head before being detained, according to a federal criminal complaint. DePape faces federal and state charges. On Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty to the state charges.
Paul Pelosi was sent to the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where he received treatment for a “skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands,” according to a spokesperson for the speaker. Nancy Pelosi said Monday her husband was “making steady progress” but that it would be a “long recovery process.”
