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.”

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    13 hours ago

    This is a horrific story. We need stronger laws surrounding rape. I guarantee you, that if republican men were being raped, we would have death penalty laws against rape.

    • KeithD@lemmy.nz
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      10 hours ago

      What’s needed is not stronger laws so much as consistent and motivated enforcement of the existing laws. If nobody is bothering to investigate the crimes that are reported, fewer victims are going to report crimes, and the perpetrators are going to be emboldened.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 hours ago

        Exactly. Ask any cop about their untested rape kits.

        They get them and then they don’t do shit with them.

      • sunsofold@lemmy.zip
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        12 hours ago

        The sentence in the middle of your comment is technically true, but the surrounding joviality of lol and stupid emojis is horrible.

          • sunsofold@lemmy.zip
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            10 hours ago

            There are literally over a dozen people on Lemmy. There may even be more than twice that. Don’t expect a single, cohesive view on anything. It’s rare enough for even a single person to have cohesive views. If you expect a single, cohesive view from a group of multiple people, that’s about as realistic as expecting your romantic relationships to work like ones in Disney movies. The person calling for the death penalty as a comment on one post is probably not the same one calling for care in handling a homeless man’s issues. This is a collection of individuals, not a collective hivemind.

            • slag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              10 hours ago

              It’s a ten day old account shill account. They speak fluent Youtube comment because that’s where their experience is.

              • sunsofold@lemmy.zip
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                5 hours ago

                Newbies often need guidance on the norms of the space they have come into. Hopefully, they will learn.

      • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Laws don’t prevent rape because they’re not enforced. As we’ve seen with the Cornell case.

          • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip
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            11 hours ago

            Hate cops but now expect them to help you?

            So you admit that they can’t be expected to do their jobs? Weird take from someone who supports the police. Maybe if they actually did their jobs they wouldn’t be so hated.

            Expect the harshest punishment for rapists, but homeless criminals should be excused at all cost no matter what they do

            Oh, you’re here to strawman. No surprise there.

            • Expect the peeps to be caught ASAP but hate flock cameras

            Is that not what they’re for? Why would you be against them being used for what they’re allegedly for?

            Fucking HYPOCRITES

            If you were smart enough to know how dumb you are you’d be embarrassed.

            • funksoulkitchen@lemmy.zip
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              11 hours ago

              So you want police to stop brutalizing marginalized communities but also don’t want to be randomly assaulted and raped?

              Like most things in life, it’s a binary choice and you can’t possibly have both

              • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip
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                11 hours ago

                So you want police to stop brutalizing marginalized communities

                Yes?

                but also don’t want to be randomly assaulted and raped?

                Also yes?

                Like most things in life, it’s a binary choice and you can’t possibly have both

                Why the hell not? Where is that written down?

                • funksoulkitchen@lemmy.zip
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                  6 hours ago

                  Sorry I was trying to be sarcastic and the point i was trying to make was essentially the opposite of what I said, which I recognize could be confusing.

                  Most things are not a binary choice, and if we were going to have real police reform we would need to have difficult conversations about how much policing snd what type is the best to ensure public safety without having the policing itself become a public safety concern. But that reform isn’t coming, so we probably don’t need to have those conversations