▶ Watch Video: Arizona congressional candidate says she was raped while fixing campaign sign
In the days since U.S. House candidate Bernadette Greene-Placentia publicly came forward alleging she was raped over the summer while repairing a campaign sign, she says women have been reaching out to her to share their own stories.
“The humbling thing is that so many – hundreds and hundreds of women from around the world — have taken the time to write me and tell me their own story,” Greene-Placentia told CBS News in an interview. “I would say about 70% of them have acknowledged that they never reported it, and they are thanking me for being in the public eye and talking about it and giving voice because they didn’t feel like they had a voice when they went through the same thing.”
Greene-Placentia, a Democrat, is facing freshman Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh on the ballot in November in Arizona’s 8th District, located in the Phoenix suburbs. The district is rated as solidly Republican by Cook Political Report.
The reported sexual assault happened amid a heated campaign season, as concerns about political violence swirl. At a rally in September, an armed man lunged at Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, and at a town hall earlier this year, a man lunged and sprayed vinegar at Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Greene-Placentia, who had been a long-haul trucker, told CBS News that “we are not a well-funded campaign,” and she and her staff were usually the ones putting up campaign signs or fixing them.
“I took pride in being able to, you know, do these things myself because we are a grassroots campaign, so it wasn’t unusual,” she said of fixing signs at all hours.
She said that a “little after midnight” one night in August, she was repairing some supplies when she was hit on the back of the head. When she regained consciousness, she said she realized she was on the ground, and a “man was on top of me, and then I felt pain down there.” She said that man “climbed off,” and then another man assaulted her.
“At that point, I remember I started, like, moving around and kicking,” she said. “He said, ‘You know, just not worth it.’ And they left. I don’t know how long I stayed there.”
Greene-Placentia said she drove straight home, and she said she believes police have footage of her driving home.
A police report from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says the incident occurred on Aug. 14 between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., and she reported the incident on Aug. 31.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement earlier this week that it was investigating the incident but could not comment further.
Greene-Placentia said she told her husband and staff the next day, but she didn’t want to talk about it at first.
Greene-Placentia said Friday that she realized she wanted to come forward while she was telling her own personal story on the trail. She said she was talking about how her father died while waiting to get care with the Department of Veterans Affairs and she found out six months later that her mother had been rationing her insulin.
“I was asking them, ‘Do you think anybody’s gonna fight harder than me?'” Greene-Placentia said. “And then in the back of my head, I’m like, ‘Well you’re telling these folks that you’re gonna fight for them, but what about all the women that are victims of sexual assault? Are you not gonna fight for them? That kind of makes you a hypocrite, Bernadette.'”
Greene-Placentia’s story was first published on Wednesday in the Phoenix New Times. Since then, her opponent, Hamadeh, called it a “disturbing story,” and he was calling “upon authorities to investigate these serious allegations thoroughly, including finding all possible camera footage of the time and place in order to prosecute the crime to the fullest extent of the law.”
Greene-Placentia said that she wants to tell women who come up to her that she understands what they are going through.
“As women, we want to take responsibility for everything and blame ourselves, and that is a societal problem we’ve got to get away from,” Greene-Placentia said.
