Daniel Wolfram
Struck from behind and knocked unconscious in a Sun City parking lot, Bernadette Greene-Placentia woke up to a brutal attack by two men and is now breaking her silence to urge other survivors to speak out.
Bernadette Greene-Placentia was well accustomed to strange hours from her career as a long-haul trucker.
As the Democratic candidate challenging Republican Representative Abe Hamadeh in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, she frequently drove through northwest Valley suburbs after midnight to fix damaged campaign signs and avoid the scorching desert heat.
But one night changed everything for her as she was sexually assaulted while making sure her campaign signs were up.
A horrible crime
Just after 2 a.m. in a Sun City parking lot, someone ambushed Greene-Placentia from behind and struck her on the head, knocking her unconscious. When she woke up on the pavement, a man was sexually assaulting her while an accomplice looked on, leaving her injured before both men fled into the dark.
According to the Phoenix New Times, Greene-Placentia drove home in a daze and woke up covered in bruises. She endured severe head injuries and bleeding, but shock clouded most of her memories of the ordeal.
She told the news outlet, “It’s just these little tiny flashes of things that I do remember. As much as I don’t want to remember, I’ve tried very, very hard to remember more stuff. But that’s where I’m at.” She can also recall that the attack may have been politically motivated due to her being a Democratic candidate, although she is uncertain.
Greene-Placentia told the Phoenix New Times that these trips to repair her campaign signs had become routine and that nearly all of them needed repairs.
“I have over 250 signs up, and at some point, all 250 have needed repairs or something. On any given night, there could be 30 or 40 stops where we either put up a sign or fixed a sign,” she recalled.
Refusing to be silenced
For two days, Greene-Placentia remained isolated in her apartment, barely speaking as her husband noticed something was terribly wrong. Her campaign aides also grew alarmed when she did not show up to planned campaign events.
That Sunday, she broke down in tears and told her staff what happened. Opening up to law enforcement proved even harder. Greene-Placentia admitted she initially felt “embarrassed” and wanted to “forget it happened,” but she soon felt hypocritical encouraging voters to be brave while staying silent about her own assault.
More than two weeks later, she reported the attack to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, where detectives launched an investigation that remains ongoing. Investigators later visited her home to gather details. Greene-Placentia chose to share her story openly, saying, “I need to let women know that it’s okay to talk about it.”
