By Nathan Frandino and Steve Gorman

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The person who clubbed U.S. Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband within the head with hammer, shouting “The place is Nancy?” after forcing his approach into the couple’s San Francisco residence, confronted costs of tried homicide and different felonies a day later.

Police initially declined to supply a motive for Friday’s assault on Paul Pelosi, 82, who in response to his spouse’s workplace underwent surgical procedure for a cranium fracture and accidents to his proper arm and arms, although docs anticipate a full restoration.

However the incident stoked fears about political violence lower than two weeks forward of midterm elections on Nov. 8 that can determine management of the Home of Representatives and Senate, coming amid probably the most vitriolic and polarized U.S. political local weather in many years.

The 82-year-old Home speaker herself, a Democrat who’s second within the constitutional line of succession to the U.S. presidency, was in Washington on the time of the assault.

She flew to San Francisco to be together with her husband. Three dark-colored SUVs believed to belong to a particular safety element had been parked on Saturday with a metropolis police patrol automobile exterior Zuckerberg San Francisco Common Hospital, the place Paul Pelosi was admitted.

Paul Pelosi Jr., the couple’s son, was additionally on the hospital. Requested by a reporter for an replace on his father, he replied: “Thus far, so good.”

President Joe Biden, talking to reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday, mentioned he understood Pelosi’s husband “appears to be doing quite a bit higher,” and that the assault appeared to have been “meant for Nancy.”

Police recognized the person arrested on the scene as David DePape, 42. He, too, was taken to a San Francisco hospital, however it was not made clear whether or not he was there for medical or psychiatric care or each.

On-line sheriff’s data confirmed he was booked into custody on suspicion of tried homicide, assault with a lethal weapon, elder abuse, battery, housebreaking, threatening a public official or member of the family, and different felonies. Formal costs shall be filed on Monday, and his arraignment is anticipated on Tuesday, in response to the San Francisco district legal professional’s workplace.

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott informed a Friday evening information briefing that police detectives, assisted by FBI brokers, had but to find out what precipitated the house invasion however mentioned, “We all know this was not a random act.”

An announcement from Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill, mentioned Pelosi’s husband had been attacked “by an assailant who acted with drive, and threatened his life whereas demanding to see the Speaker.”

The intruder shouted, “The place is Nancy?” earlier than attacking, in response to an individual briefed on the incident who spoke to Reuters on situation of anonymity.

FROM HEMP TO HATE?

Within the seek for a motive, consideration turned to the suspect’s obvious web profile.

In latest posts on a number of web sites, an web consumer named “daviddepape” expressed assist for former President Donald Trump and embraced the cult-like conspiracy principle QAnon. The posts included references to “satanic pedophilia,” anti-Semitic tropes and criticism of ladies, transgender individuals and censorship by tech corporations.

Older messages promoted quartz crystals and hemp bracelets. Reuters couldn’t affirm the posts had been created by the suspect arrested Friday.

Specialists on extremism mentioned the assault might be an instance of a rising pattern they name “stochastic terrorism,” wherein sometimes-unstable people are impressed to violence by hate speech and situations they see on-line and listen to echoed by public figures.

“This was clearly a focused assault. The aim was to find and doubtlessly hurt the speaker of the Home,” mentioned John Cohen, a former counterterrorism coordinator and head of intelligence on the Division of Homeland Safety who’s working with U.S. legislation enforcement businesses on the problem.

The San Francisco Chronicle posted a photograph of a person it recognized as DePape dancing on the 2013 wedding ceremony of two nudist activists in San Francisco, although he was clothed. DePape, then a hemp jewellery maker who listed himself as a member of the left-leaning Inexperienced Occasion, lived with the couple in Berkeley and was greatest man at their wedding ceremony, the newspaper reported. It mentioned he grew up in Canada.

Scott mentioned the intruder pressured his approach into the Pelosis’ three-story crimson brick townhouse by means of a rear door. Aerial pictures confirmed shattered glass behind the home within the metropolis’s prosperous Pacific Heights neighborhood.

WELLBEING CHECK

The chief mentioned police had been dispatched for an “A-priority wellbeing examine” at about 2:30 a.m. on the idea of a considerably cryptic emergency-911 name from the residence. Different information shops reported the decision was positioned by Paul Pelosi.

Scott credited the 911 operator with discerning that “there was extra to this incident than what she was being informed” by the caller, thus dispatching the decision at a better precedence than regular. Scott known as her choice “life-saving.”

In line with Scott, police arriving on the entrance door glimpsed DePape and Pelosi struggling over a hammer. Because the officers yelled at each males to drop the software, DePape yanked the hammer away and was seen putting Pelosi not less than as soon as, the chief mentioned. The officers then tackled, disarmed and arrested DePape, Scott mentioned.

The incident got here a day after New York Metropolis police warned that extremists may goal politicians, political occasions and polling websites forward of the elections.

The U.S. Capitol Police, which reported 9,625 threats in opposition to lawmakers of each events in 2021, up almost threefold from 2017, urged congressional workplaces in a particular memo on Saturday to take further safety precautions in mild of heightened dangers they face.

As a Democratic chief in Washington and a longtime consultant from one in every of America’s most liberal cities, Nancy Pelosi is a frequent goal of Republican criticism.

Her workplace was ransacked throughout the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Republican then-President Trump, a few of whom hunted for her throughout the assault.