Those hoping to see the mugshot of David DePape, 42, who allegedly violently attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer at the San Francisco residence of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will have to wait.
Email requests from The Epoch Times for DePape’s mugshot, sent to both the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office, were denied, the outlet reported Saturday.
The outlet received two very different responses from both law enforcement agencies as to why they couldn’t or wouldn’t release the images.
Aerial footage of the Pelosi home in Pacific Heights shows a window was broken and police combing through the property. https://t.co/zkQEhJ2mrG pic.twitter.com/zdBI38tO9V
— KTVU (@KTVU) October 28, 2022
The San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office, where DePape is currently being detained, responded in an email to The Epoch Times, “We do not own the rights to mugshots.”
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The city’s police department, in its denial, said that it wouldn’t release the mugshot given the “current circumstances,” though no further explanation was provided. “Under the current circumstances we do not release mugshots of the suspect,” Officer Nicole Pacchetti’s email to The Epoch Times read.
Pacchetti might have been referencing a standing policy issued in 2020 by San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, who said at the time that mugshots of suspects would only be released if “their release is necessary to warn the public of imminent danger or to enlist the public’s assistance in locating individuals, including at-risk persons.”
According to a statement from SFPD at the time, Scott cited research that concluded releasing a mugshot fostered racism and bias.
“This policy emerges from compelling research suggesting that the widespread publication of police booking photos in the news and on social media creates an illusory correlation for viewers that fosters racial bias and vastly overstates the propensity of black and brown men to engage in criminal behavior.”
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The statement added, “By implementing this groundbreaking new policy today, SFPD is taking a stand that…
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