What the hell happened at Nancy Pelosi's house?

It's fun to ask questions.

What the hell happened, exactly, at Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco this week? Ostensibly a crazy dude broke in and was purportedly looking for Nancy herself but encountered her husband Paul; some sort of struggle with a hammer ensued, during which Paul was violently attacked with the hammer; the dude was arrested, Paul was patched up at a hospital, and an indictment is forthcoming.

It seems simple enough, such as it is. And to be honest, it’s probably not much more than this. Things are usually not any more complicated than they seem. But I think about what H.L. Mencken said: “There is always an easy solution to every problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” There’s no harm in assuming for a likely simple explanation so long as you budget appropriately for the possibly complicated one.

Here are some details that complicate this weird story out of weird San Francisco:

• Why did police not immediately enter the Pelosi residence upon arriving? Politico reports that when police showed up after being dispatched, they “knocked on the front door.” Huh? Why? Is that standard operating procedure as part of a police-responded emergency? Note that, per the San Francisco Chronicle, the dispatcher who received Paul’s phone call upgraded the response to a “code 3 emergency.” The city’s EMS Agency Policy Manual lists a Code 3 as “a medical emergency requiring immediate response with red lights and siren.” Do police traditionally knock on the door for that sort of thing? Seconds count in a medical emergency; what if someone had been choking? What if nobody had answered? Would they just leave?

• Who was the mystery third person present at this incident? Politico says an “unknown person” let the officers in; the Chronicle says “someone” let them in, as did the LA Times and the Washington Post. Whoever this person is, it wasn’t either Pelosi or his attacker, both of whom were apparently struggling over a hammer when the door was opened. Who was this person? Are police aware of who it was? If so, how come they’re not saying? Are they not aware of who it was? If so, why? How is it that there was a mystery person present at the middle-of-the-night brutally violent attack of the spouse of one of the most prominent politicians in the world, and 48 hours after the attack we don’t know who that person was?

• Why did Paul Pelosi not just stay in the bathroom until police arrived? Reports presently indicate that Paul managed to alert police by telling the intruder that he had to use the bathroom; he was able to call police from the bathroom because “his phone had been charging” in there, as Politico reported. That’s a smart move—the perp sounds pretty dumb, though I suppose it’s more likely that he’s just crazy—but it raises the question: Why didn’t Paul just lock the bathroom door and stay in there until police arrived? I suppose it’s possible that the perp followed him in to the bathroom to make sure there was no funny business going on—but then how was Paul able to make the phone call in the first place if the dude was standing at his elbow? There are a number of logical explanations for this weird discrepancy—maybe the dude followed Paul in there but Paul just went for the phone anyway out of desperation, etc—but for the moment it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

• Who charges their phone in the bathroom? Okay, this is somewhat immaterial, but I just gotta say that baffled me. All I could think about was Frasier Crane’s classic remark to his ex-wife: “But food…in the bathroom?” I don’t know why you’d leave your phone to charge in the bathroom but I suppose it’s possible the Pelosis have a pretty nice bathroom with a designated phone-charging area or something. I digress.

• How did the perp gain access to the house? Look at the photo above. That’s from a local news broadcast and it depicts what appears to be the scene of the break-in; police have said the intruder gained access to the house via a back door. Well, this is a bit weird: How many window break-ins do you know of where the glass has fallen outward from the point of breakage? That looks like the break may have come more from the inside of the house. Now, the window itself looks like it was composed of some sort of laminated glass; that kind of material doesn’t shatter like traditional glass but sort of crackles into a sheet. You could picture the assailant possibly breaking the glass with a hammer and then ripping his hammer out of the sheet of laminate, spewing debris back out onto the patio. Maybe. The only news outlet that apparently bothered to ask about the odd debris scatterage was the New York Post, which noted that San Francisco police “declined to comment” on the matter.

Most assuredly these questions will be answered in the days and weeks ahead. Or, you know what, maybe they won’t. But in any event they are at least interesting to ask. If only we had some sort of professional class of civic-minded citizens willing to grill public officials over important details like this. Naah, who am I kidding, that’d never work!