David DePape, the man who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer in a bizarre home invasion last October that he told police he was there to hold hostage Pelosi’s wife then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and break her kneecaps, called San Francisco TV station KTVU on Friday in response to the police bodycam video of the attack being released earlier in the day.
DePape stylized himself as a patriot watering the tree of Liberty and apologized, saying “I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them,” adding, “I should have come better prepared.”
DePape is an illegal alien from Canada who overstayed his visa fourteen years ago.
DePape is being held without bail on state and federal charges and has an ICE detainer for deportation.
DePape:
Now that you all have seen the bodycam footage, I have an important message for everyone in America. Freedom and 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. The tree of Liberty needs watering, he needs men of valor. Patriots willing to put their own lives on the line to stand in opposition of tyranny.
I would also like to apologize. 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.
I spent all my time exposing government corruption online, only to have them silence my freedom of speech as quickly as they could. It circumvented the Constitution. Private industry and the ruling class outsources the recession of these civil tights to private industry–it’s called fascism. I have a lot more to say. I had a website of over three hundred pages. That’s three hundred pages of stuff they don’t want you to hear. I’m in the process of trying to set up a new site out of the reach of tyrannical global fascists and their internet censors.”
Transcribed by TGP.
A recording of DePape’s confession to investigators was played in court last month (CNN excerpt):
(San Francisco Police Department Lt. Carla) Hurley read DePape his Miranda Rights before asking, “Do you know why you are in custody?”
The 42-year-old Richmond man replied, “Oh absolutely. I’m not trying to get away with it. I know exactly what I did.”
DePape then began earnestly explaining why he broke into the Pelosi’s house and what his intentions for going there were.
“The lies are insane. People in Washington. It originates with Hillary (Clinton). Honestly, day in and day out, the person on TV lying every day was (Nancy) Pelosi. It’s f***ing insane the crime spree the Democrats have been on, persecuting the rival campaign,” DePape explained.
When Hurley asked him to clarify which campaign he felt was persecuted by the Democrats, DePape answered “Trump.” The Democrats go from one crime to another crime. It’s a whole f***ing four years. It’s unacceptable.”
…DePape told the lieutenant that he was on a suicide mission with a hit list of people who he felt were responsible for “corruption” and “lies” in Congress. His list of targets included: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden; California Governor Gavin Newsom; and actor Tom Hanks.
“I told him, I have other targets. I can’t be stopped. If I have to go through him, I will,” DePape said.
Gypsy Taub, an ex-girlfriend of DePape, said in an interview last fall with SFist that he was not a Trump supporter and had mental issues (excerpt):
Taub says she met DePape in Hawaii in 2000, and said that he was a “shy and sweet” who “didn’t know anything about politics.” As SFist surmised last week, he is hardly the picture of a right-wing radical, despite the parallels between his actions and the January 6th insurrection — he was reportedly shouting “Where’s Nancy?” and carrying zip ties. Taub says he was a fan of Obama and had agreed with many of her progressive viewpoints — and she says that they never argued about politics during their time together.
But where mental illness and the extreme vitriol of today’s politics collide is where we likely find DePape and his motives. Taub says that both she and DePape are/were “against the shadow government.”
“I don’t think he became a Trump supporter,” Taub tells the Chronicle. “He was against the government, but if anything he was opposed to the shadow government, against the people who really run the government and use politicians as puppets. Like Trump was a puppet.”
…Taub says that she broke up with DePape for about a year and a half in 2009, during which time he lived on the street and became increasingly paranoid. And after they got back together sometime in 2010, Taub tells the Chronicle he believed he was “Jesus for a year.”
…Inti Gonzalez, who says she’s stayed in touch with DePape since he left their home, tells the New York Times, “There is some part of him that is a good person even though he has been very consumed by darkness.” But, she adds ominously, “the monster in him was always too strong for him to be safe to be around.”