Plymouth Rep. Sarah Anderson Victim of Alleged Assault
With three weeks until Election Day, campaign signs are as visible as the fall colors. However, some are in better condition than others.
“I’ve had signs down here on Rockford Road,” said Rep. Sarah Anderson, R-Plymouth. “Two years ago, they were all spray-painted.”
This past Sunday, Anderson says she saw a man kicking several signs along Rockford Road and decided to intervene.
“So I pull my car over and I cross the street and I confronted him,” Anderson said. “I said, ‘hey, you can’t do that, that’s not your property.’ And that’s when he said to me, ‘I’m an anarchist, I can do what I want.’ And I said ‘no, you can’t do that. I said it’s not your property. You can’t do that.'”
Anderson says the man then charged at her and backed her into the street.
“And he said, ‘why don’t you go kill yourself.’ I had to step off onto Rockford Road, and then I just got out of there. I went back across the street, got back in my car, and I thought I had gotten a photograph of him, and I hadn’t.”
It was at that point that Anderson drove to a nearby gas station, which was in the direction where he was headed.
‘I’ve never been more scared in my life’
She snapped a photograph of him as he approached, but Anderson wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
“He sees me, and he says, just leave me the (expletive) alone,” she said. “And he comes running at me. So I get into my car. I have my little car, and I couldn’t get the door shut fast enough, and so he got in between my door and then me, sitting in the car.”
As she was in the process of leaving, Anderson said the man punched her in the arm. Anderson sent CCX News a photo of the bruise.
“I’ve never been more scared in my life,” she said. “And being punched, I’ve never been punched in my life. It’s just unreal.”
It was a shocking moment for the woman who has served in the Minnesota legislature since 2006, but she says she’s not going to be intimidated.
“We’ve got to stop this,” Anderson said. “People have got to stop treating people that way just because they don’t agree with their views. It’s just ridiculous.”
The Plymouth Police Department says they have identified a suspect, but the investigation is still ongoing, and no charges have been filed.
Meanwhile, Anderson’s opponent, Ginny Klevorn, called it an “unfortunate situation,” and said that she doesn’t condone violence of any sort.
