Man charged in Pelosi attack calls TV station to apologise for not being ‘better prepared’

The man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer made a bizarre phone call to a San Francisco television newsroom lamenting that he hadn’t been “better prepared” for the assault.

David DePape, on the same day authorities released body camera footage from the October incident, called KTVU from San Francisco County Jail, where he is being held on charges including attempted murder. He spoke for more than five minutes to a reporter, who was not allowed to challenge the suspect nor ask follow-up questions, according to the station.

In October, DePape allegedly broke into the Pacific Heights home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul, 82, who was assaulted and hospitalized after the incident.

The suspect on Friday told KTVU that he’d obtained targets’ “names and addresses so I could pay them a little visit…have a heart to heart chat about their bad behavior.”

He continued; “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.”

DePape, who has pleaded not guilty, allegedly told San Francisco police following the assault that he’d planned to hold Ms Pelosi hostage, interrogate her and injure her if she “lied.”

“DePape articulated [that] he viewed Nancy as the ‘leader of the pack’ of lies told by the Democratic Party,” an FBI complaint reads. “If Nancy were to tell DePape the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps.’”

In his Friday call to KTVU, DePape also ranted about “fascists” and vowed to set up a website — though he remains behind bars — that would be “out of reach of tyrannical global fascists and their internet censors.”

The suspect, 42, had a colourful history in the San Francisco area but by 2012 was described as “megalomaniac and so out of touch with reality” by Linda Schneider, who’d known him for several years and told CNN she cut off contact when his ideas “seemed so dangerous.”