As the media and commentators seek to determine the political leanings of David DePape, the man detained in connection with Friday’s attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, many observers have identified one alarming feature of the situation:

DePape certainly suffers from untreated, serious mental disease.

It will take some time to determine DePape’s motivations for the violent midnight attack on 82-year-old Paul Pelosi. Nonetheless, the New York Post compiled interviews with a number of DePape’s former neighbors who shared similar accounts about the guy.

Neighbors described DePape as “homeless,” with the Post adding that he lived in a “dilapidated” school bus parked outside of the home of “notorious Bay Area nudist and left-wing activist Gypsy Taub.”

One of DePape’s neighbors, Ryan La Coste, told the Post that DePape “he usually kept to himself,” adding, “He would just give us a blank stare when we would walk by. We tried to stay clear of him.”

“Another crazy story coming from someone in that house,” La Coste said. “They are always on the news and trying to be ‘activists.’ They always want to be in the spotlight.”

Margarita Gonzalez, another of DePape’s neighbors, told The Post that she had never observed him conduct an act of violence, but that he may be mentally sick.

“He never had work,” Gonzalez said. “Maybe there’s a mental problem with him.”

In a separate piece for the Post, journalist and author Michael Shellenberger reported conversations with people who know the man.

The media are portraying the suspect in the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband as a man fundamentally driven by right-wing ideology. But it's obvious to anyone who looks that what drove David DePape to violence was drug-induced paranoid psychosis.https://t.co/qfs5zHokni

— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) October 29, 2022

Shellenberger reported the unsettling environment at the house where DePape’s bus is parked, which is cluttered with left-wing slogans and posters.

“In the driveway, there is a broken-down camper van. On the street is a yellow school bus, which neighbors said DePape occasionally stayed in. Both are filled with garbage typical of such structures in homeless encampments,” he wrote. “People come and go from the house and the vehicles, neighbors say, in part to partake in the use of a potent psychedelic drug, ibogaine.”

More on this story via The Western Journal:

“What I know about the family is that they’re very radical activists,” a neighbor, identified only as “Trish,” told Shellenberger.

“They seem very left. They are all about the Black Lives Matter movement. Gay pride. But they’re very detached from reality. They have called the cops on several of the neighbors, including us, claiming that we are plotting against them. It’s really weird to see that they are willing to be so aggressive toward somebody else who is also a lefty.” CONTINUE READING…