The video is out. Kind of strange. Door is opened to police by Pelosi, who is holding a drink and co-holding a hammer with DePape. The police ask Depape to drop the hammer and he said he wasn't going to do that. Then there was a struggle and DePape got the hammer out of Pelosi's grip and immediately attacked. There was no time for the police to stop that action because they were trying to de-escalate the situation and it got out of hand in about 1 second.
Very strange. But not much defense for Depape after watching that. You see the attack but they go out of visual range when the hammer hits Pelosi. You can see the police body cam footage below.
Should the police have attacked Depape to wrest the hammer away? That is not de-escalation but escalation. It might have worked, but as they were standing there, both holding the hammer and Depape saying things were cool, I'm guessing the police were not to concerned something bad was going to happen. This is just strange. Pelosi is not indicating he is in distress or thinks he may be, however, his mouth is open the whole time like he wants to say something, but I didn't hear him say anything. It was all Depape talking.
I honestly don't know what to make of this. Pelosi should have gotten a body lock on him and took him to the cleaners. Hammer blow would be less hurtfull that way I think. I'm guessing Pelosi wasn't recalling his old wrestling moves at that moment. Very weird. Strange beginning and very violent end. Now we all know what happened.
mspart