The US Capitol Police have launched an internal investigation after officers monitoring CCTV cameras trained on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home failed to notice the break-in which immediately preceded a brutal assault on Ms Pelosi’s husband last week.
Earlier this week, multiple outlets reported that officers at the department’s Washington DC command centre responsible for keeping watch on live feeds from cameras installed to monitor the Pelosi residence did not know anything was amiss early on the morning of 28 October until they saw police vehicles with emergency lights activated outside of the speaker’s townhouse.
The officer in charge of monitoring the cameras only discovered the footage of alleged assailant David DePape smashing a glass door at the rear of the residence and entering it when subsequently reviewing footage from the previous few hours.
According to court documents, Mr DePape went from that rear patio entrance to Mr Pelosi’s bedroom and confronted the 82-year-old real estate and technology investor, threatening to tie him up until his wife returned. After Mr Pelosi managed to summon police, responding officers from the San Francisco Police Department witnessed Mr DePape strike him on the head with a hammer. He is still in hospital recovering from surgery to repair a fractured skull and other damage to his right arm and hand.
Although Ms Pelosi, who is second in the presidential line of succession, has had a Capitol Police security detail since she became leader of the House Democrats in 2003, no protective agents were at her home that morning because she was in Washington DC.
In a statement, the Capitol Police said it was conducting an “internal security review” of the incident and will soon gather “input and questions from Congressional stakeholders”.
The department added that its’ practice has only been to “actively monitor” the cameras at Ms Pelosi’s home when she has been staying there.
“While the Speaker was with her security detail in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco cameras were not actively monitored as they are when the Speaker is at the residence. The Command Center personnel noticed the police activity on the screen and used the feeds to monitor the response and assist investigators,” the department said.
