The suspect in last fall's hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, David DePape, is doing himself no favors in terms of that "not guilty" plea with a phone call he made from jail Friday to a KTVU reporter.
The same day that the SFPD released bodycam footage of the actual attack to the news media, under court order, DePape got on the horn to KTVU's Amber Lee, delivering a prepared statement over the phone. DePape apparently told Lee that the conditions of her receiving said statement were that she could not challenge his statements or ask follow-up questions.
Lee appears to have been selected for this dubious honor because she had previously reached out to DePape shortly after his arrest.
"So what do you want to say?" Lee asks. "Because, as you know, they released the video earlier today."
"Yeah, I saw that," DePape says. "Now that you have all seen the bodycam footage, I have an important message for everyone in America: You're welcome."
Lee stutters a moment, and then DePape continues with his statement, confirming what he already allegedly told police — that he had a list of targets, and that he intended to do harm to Nancy Pelosi.
"Freedom and liberty isn't dying," DePape says. "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 and have a heart-to-heart chat about their bad behavior."
He expounds upon the "tree of liberty" needing "water" from "men of valor" and "patriots."
And, crazily, he says, "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."
He also seems to think his bizzarro Wordpress blog with subzero readers was important work that he was doing in the fight against "tyranny."
"I spent all my time exposing government corruption online, only to have them silence my freedom of speech as quickly as they could," he says.
The site in question was full of racist, sexist, and antisemitic gibberish culled from online forums, Twitter, and/or Kanye West, and not exactly the stuff of revelation, but I digress. DePape finishes by telling Lee that he is in the process of setting up "a new site out of the reach of tyrannical global fascists and their internet censors."
Anyway! Nothing to see here but some batshit bullshit. His public defender is probably not thrilled, and the morass of right-wing pundits who keep trying to question the truth of what went on here, and whose rhetoric is at fault for radicalizing this man, should have fun debunking this.
His next court date is set for February 23, at which point a date is supposed to be set for his state trial — and there is also the federal case against him, which will be bolstered by these latest statements.
Previously: Video Footage of Attack On Paul Pelosi Released By Court Order
