Stanley Vaughan, a 67-year-old Las Vegas Republican running for a seat in the State Assembly, was assaulted by a knife-wielding mugger on August 29 while putting up his own campaign signs.
The brazen daylight attack occurred along Pecos Road, where Vaughan was alone, lost in thought, and focused on his campaign efforts, Fox 5 Vegas reported.
Vaughan, a U.S. Army veteran, was startled when the assailant suddenly demanded his wallet.
“I‘m so focused on getting the cable ties through and getting them through the fence, I wasn’t paying attention to pedestrians and stuff coming through here. I had my back turned. I turned around, caught me by surprise– then he started to lunge at me. I instinctively kicked him and he ran away,” Vaughan said.
Only after the mugger had fled did Vaughan realize he had been injured.
“I jumped into the car, and then I’m realizing I’m bleeding,” he said.
His wife, a nurse, quickly tended to the gash on his forearm, which remains covered in bandages.
Despite the trauma, Vaughan remains resolute, vowing not to campaign alone anymore but staying committed to his bid for Assembly District 20.
Fox 5 reported:
Vaughan described the suspect as a man who seemed disoriented and hadn’t bathed in days, suspecting that he was homeless.
Vaughan said that he doesn’t plan to put signs up alone, anymore.
Crime is a big concern for the decades-long local, who is the security and police liaison for his homeowner’s association two miles away and helps his neighbors file police reports. ” It’s just being a good neighbor. We got to look out for each other,” Vaughan said.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police call the incident isolated, and detectives have not tied the perpetrator to any other incident.
In the area of the incident, the 89121 zip code and across the Southeast Area Command, robberies are down 23.6%, according to online LVMPD statistics.
