Paul Pelosi tricked intruder, alerted cops before being beaten with hammer, police say

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New details are emerging of what happened next, an attack that left Paul Pelosi seriously injured in what police say was an intentional act and left many stunned at yet another display of political violence.

According to police, DePape allegedly entered the house and at some point confronted Paul Pelosi.

Pelosi told the intruder that he had to use the bathroom, then made a surreptitious 911 call on his cellphone and left the line open, sources familiar with the attack told The Times. Dispatcher Heather Grimes could hear Pelosi talking to his attacker and alerted officers to the scene.

In a communication between a dispatcher and a police car, the dispatcher says “there’s a male in the home and that he’s going to wait for his wife. The dispatcher said the man on the line “doesn’t know who the male is, but he advise that his name is David and then [said] he is a friend.” The caller, she added, “sounded somewhat confused.”

A law enforcement source in San Francisco said officials believe Pelosi was intentionally giving coded information because the intruder knew Pelosi was on the phone and wanted to signal to the dispatcher that something was wrong.

At a press conference Friday, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott praised Grimes’ quick thinking.

“She had to interpret what she was being told,” he said at the news conference. “And based on her experience and intuition, she basically figured out that there was something more to this incident than what she was being told. Her actions, in my opinion, resulted in both a higher-priority dispatch and a faster police response.”

It took police about two minutes to get to the house.

When officers arrived and knocked on the front door, Scott said, someone inside opened the door. The officers saw Paul Pelosi and DePape, “each with one hand on a single hammer,” he said.

After officers ordered both men to drop the hammer, DePape “immediately” pulled the tool from Pelosi and “violently attacked him with the hammer,” Scott said.

Police tackled the assailant, grabbed the hammer and took him into custody before calling for backup and beginning first aid.

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