CRIME
Suspect Arrested For Allegedly Assaulting Former Senator Martha McSally While She Was Jogging
Council Bluffs Police Department
A suspect was arrested early Friday on suspicion of assaulting former U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, while she was out jogging in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Wednesday.
According to a statement from the Council Bluffs Police Department, 25-year-old Dominic Henton of Papillion, Neb., was spotted in Omaha, which is just across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs, and taken into custody by the Omaha Police Department shortly before 4 a.m. Friday.
McSally described the Wednesday attack in a video on Facebook on Wednesday, and said, you picked the wrong target.
“A man came up behind me and he engulfed me in a bear hug and he molested and fondled me until I fought him off,” she said. “I then chased him down. I said a lot of swear words in this moment. I was in a fight, flight or freeze. And I chose to fight.”
Surveillance video from the area showed Papillion following McSally over the Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge and onto a trail.
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.
When they launched their investigation, Council Bluffs police warned Henton may be transient and may frequent bot the Iowa and Nebraska sides of the river.
I chose to fight, and I’m OK right now in part because of that. It could have been much worse, McSally said. I know it’s tapped into a nerve of other sexual abuse and assault that I’ve been through in the past, which I’ve healed from as much as I feel can be done, but in this case, I felt like I took my power back.
McSally served in the Air Force as a pilot, achieving the rank of colonel, before representing Arizona’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. The Republican was later appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant after the death of John McCain, after the resignation of Jon Kyl, and served from January 2019 to December 2020.
In a video recorded in an airport on Thursday, McSally described being suddenly overcome with a wave of emotion following her ordeal.
Feel the emotions, then let them go, she wrote alongside the video. If we dont feel them, they get stuck in our body and psyche. They manifest in reactions to events in life. [They] manifest in new fears that hold us back from thriving. They manifest in sickness and disease.
Henton will be extradited back to Council Bluffs to face charges, police said.
TMX contributed to this article.
