It was just after 2 a.m. on a pitch-black Friday morning when Bernadette Greene-Placentia’s life changed. The Democratic candidate for Congressional District 8 strolled across a parking lot to repair a damaged campaign sign. It was a routine she’d followed all summer. This time, she only made it a few yards.

An attacker smashed her over the head. She blacked out. She woke up to find a strange man on top of her.

Greene-Placentia struggled to open her eyes. She felt a sharp pain below her waist. The attacker was pulling his penis out of her.

She heard him mumble something like, “-ic bitch, not a very good fuck,” which her mind filled in as “Democratic bitch,” she recalled. She wasn’t sure that was exactly what he said.

One leg was out of her jean capris. She wore brand-new tennis shoes and a campaign t-shirt. Another man came over. Greene-Placentia felt his weight nudging her left leg further apart. She began swinging her foot at him. “Not even worth it,” she heard the man say as he moved away. He wore black boots and had small feet, she recalled.

The two men left Greene-Placentia face down in the parking lot. The hatch of her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee was still open. The car was still running. She heard music.

She doesn’t remember pulling up her pants or picking herself off the asphalt parking lot. She doesn’t remember closing her Jeep’s hatch and putting her foot on the gas. She doesn’t remember pulling her car into the driveway and collapsing into her bed.

“It’s just these little tiny flashes of things that I do remember,” Greene-Placentia said in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “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.”

  • EvergreenGuru@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I’m sorry, but the language “democratic bitch” is just so unbelievable. And there’s no medical records? I feel this story was planted by her to take advantage of the current media coverage of Cornell and the resurgence of the me too movement. I do not trust politicians.

    • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip
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      7 hours ago

      the language “democratic bitch” is just so unbelievable

      Is it? Do you know any MAGAs? Because I do and it’s not unbelievable at all.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      10 hours ago

      Here it is.

      Not even an hour has passed since this was posted and there’s already someone casting doubt on this victim’s story.

      • minorkeys@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        Yeah what a shocker that people consistently exercise caution when hearing reports of horrific things and don’t simply grant women the privilege of absolute trust…

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              7 hours ago

              You think that’s enough of a benefit to women that people shouldn’t automatically believe when a woman says they’ve been raped?

              Why is trust a privilege that women must earn before they are believed to be raped?

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  6 hours ago

                  https://sh.itjust.works/post/67596050/27712334

                  I remember our recent conversation now where you asserted that it is in the nature of men to rape and it is harmful to ask men to stop raping others:

                  minorkeys

                  From the harm your extremist views cause. Demanding ppl do things beyond their capabilities is harm.

                  velma

                  Demanding that men stop raping people is asking them for something beyond their capabilities? You have a dismal view of men.

                  • minorkeys@sh.itjust.works
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                    6 hours ago

                    That is your mischaracterization, not my claim. You’re a very disingenuous conversationalist, Velma.

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  7 hours ago

                  what a shocker that people consistently exercise caution when hearing reports of horrific things and don’t simply grant women the privilege of absolute trust…

                  Why is trust a privilege that women must earn before rape claims are to be believed?

                  • minorkeys@sh.itjust.works
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                    6 hours ago

                    Because women are people and trust is a privilege everyone must earn before claims of significance are accepted as true.

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          7 hours ago

          I’m still sour over the absolute vileness of the Graham Platner defense from Lemmy leftists.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      10 hours ago

      She believes she could have suffered a concussion during the altercation, which would have been her third one, although she didn’t seek medical attention. “I just wanted to forget it,” she said. Her body was covered with bruises from the assault, including dime-sized ones from fingers and more on the back of her arms and above her butt.

      She initially didn’t want to report what happened either. She was “embarrassed” and just wanted to “forget it happened,” she said. But on the campaign trail, Greene-Placentia is constantly speaking about fighting for Arizonans, “and I didn’t feel like I could keep saying that if I weren’t also fighting for women that are victims of sexual assault,” she said.

      She told her campaign staff what happened that Sunday and her husband the next day. She reported the assault to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office two weeks later. She told deputies that the sexual assault occurred near 99th Avenue and Bell Road in Sun City, according to the police report.

      She was staying at her in-district Sun City apartment, while her husband called her several times from their home in Surprise. After redistricting in 2023, their home in Surprise was moved 1.6 miles outside of CD-8, but Greene-Placentia still wanted to live and vote in the district.

      When Placentia called, she was in the bath multiple times and was “being nauseous on the phone,” he said. According to the police report, Greene-Placentia vaginally bled for three days after the assault.

      It was “odd” for Placentia to go two days without seeing his wife. He admitted his feelings were hurt and wondered if she was hiding something from him, he recalled.

      Greene-Placentia’s landlord, Annarose Lily, was the only person who saw her during her two-day blackout. One or two days after the assault, Lily tried to check on her outside the apartment as “she looked like she was gonna fall over,” but Greene-Placentia brushed it off, Lily said. She didn’t tell Lily the full story until a few days later.

      Try reading the fucking article next time.

      Believe women.

    • minorkeys@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      Absolutely fair to be suspicious of politicians, but given the current political climate under ICE and Donald Trump, a serial rapist himself, it is completely plausible that a couple of MAGA hardliners would rape a democrat to induce political terror or to punish them. Rape is about power, not sex, afterall.

    • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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      10 hours ago

      It’s illegal to make a false statement to cops. The rate of false rape allegations is nearly nonexistent. There are 3rd party accounts of the fact she was withdrawn after the incident. There are an uncountable number of reasons she would have not wanted this to be public, not the least of which is your exact reaction here. She’s not getting an advantage by claiming to be a rape victim, if anything people are likely to view her as weak or worse. No one votes for people out of sympathy and the fact you think the calculus would somehow be in her favor is a total misreading of what victims go through.

      • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        10 hours ago

        This kind of belief always boggles the mind - that women somehow have advantages to being a victim of rape.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 hours ago

      I don’t trust people who think women must be lying about rape if they can come up with a reason it would somehow be an “advantage” for them (guess what, someone will always be able to find an excuse)

    • aramis87@fedia.io
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      9 hours ago

      Thank you so much for your comment. I welcome the opportunity to remove your dimwitted, outdated, and useless opinions from my feed.

      • CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social
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        8 hours ago

        The only problem with blocking these types is that if everyone who cares does it they’re free to keep vomiting garbage without pushback.

        • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca
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          3 hours ago

          Lemmy and Piefed both support tags now, I think. I’m pretty simple with how I rate people. I give red, yellow, or green tags based on how toxic their opinion is, and text summarizing the flag, eg., I just tagged minorkeys with red and “Hardcore Rape Apologist”. If you tap and hold the user name of a comment in Voyager, it also links the comment you did that to, which is a good way to remind yourself why you tagged someone.

          This allows you to still see shitty people’s shitty comments, and skip over or respond, however you decide.

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          7 hours ago

          That’s one of the reasons I’m such a pain in the ass on this site sometimes. There should be more visible pushback on the Fediverse lest we allow it to be overrun with misogynists.

          • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            4 hours ago

            I appreciate it, because doing that shit over and over grinds me the fuck down. 20+ years of the same arguments about the same shit, and they just keep making more misogynists. I’m tired, boss.

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              4 hours ago

              I recognize your username, I love seeing you pop up in comment sections. We’re in it together :)

              Totally understand getting tired of it though. The desire to fight back ebbs and flows, but it’s always there.