An Ex-Arizona Senator Makes a Disturbing Instagram Reveal

A former senator from Arizona made a distressing revelation this week of a crime against her while she ran along the shore of the Missouri River, not far from Omaha, Nebraska. “I was just sexually assaulted while out running,” Martha McSally wrote on Instagram Wednesday, reports 12 News. “I am safe. I am OK. It could have been much worse.” In an accompanying video, McSally explained she’d been jogging on a trail on the Iowa side of the river when “a man came up behind me and … engulfed me in a bear hug,” per the Arizona Republic.

McSally, who represented Arizona in the Senate between 2019 and 2020, added that the man then “molested and fondled me,” until she was able to push him off and pursue him, cursing the whole way. “I ran after him, I threw my water bottle at him, and I chased him into the brush, where he was then hiding as I called 911 and waited for the police to come,” McSally said in her video. “I was in a fight, flight, or freeze [situation], and I chose to fight.” Authorities in Council Bluffs, Iowa, say McSally did indeed contact them, and that the incident is under investigation.

McSally has mentioned past incidents of sexual assault against her. In 2018, she revealed she’d been sexually abused as a teen by her track coach; the following year, McSally noted in a Senate hearing that she’d been raped by an Air Force superior. Now, “I still have a lot to process,” McSally concluded in her Instagram post, adding, “For anyone else who has been assaulted, speak up. Find your power. Process it emotionally, spiritually, neurologically.” Then, a reminder to us, and herself: “I am safe.” (Read more Martha McSally stories.)