Frequent local candidate Audrey Clement was attacked over the weekend while gathering signatures for another Arlington County Board run, ARLnow has learned.
The incident happened just before 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, outside of Arlington Central Library in Virginia Square.
Clement tells ARLnow that she and an associate were preparing to wrap up the day’s signature collection drive when a man became enraged after she asked him whether he’d like to sign her clipboard.
“I said, ‘Have I asked you for your signature already?’ And he then came towards me and took a swing at me,” Clement said. “It was very quick. It was like you could see from the look in his eye that he was triggered.”
Clement said she turned around to absorb the blow and was struck in the head. She was dazed as a bystander, a man in his 40s named Joel, saw the attack and confronted the suspect.
“He saw what the guy did and he said, ‘You [expletive] [expletive], hitting a woman!’ And he charged my assailant,” Clement said. “They went down on the ground.”
The suspect pinned the man who intervened and was beating him when Clement’s associate, David Wingard, stepped in and placed the attacker in a chokehold, Clement said. A library worker named James also came outside and helped Wingard hold the man down until police arrived.
In a crime report today, Arlington County police said the man Clement identified as Joel was seriously injured in the assault and taken to a local hospital.
“The male victim, a bystander who witnessed the assault, intervened during which the suspect struck him, causing him to fall to the ground,” ACPD said. “The suspect was then detained by two additional bystanders and was taken into custody by responding officers.”
“The female victim and two bystanders were evaluated and released by medics on scene,” the crime report continues. “The male victim sustained serious, non-life threatening injuries and was transported to an area hospital. The suspect was also transported to an area hospital for further evaluation. Jonathan Rogers, 47, of Arlington, Va. was arrested and charged with Malicious Wounding and Assault and Battery.”
Police spokeswoman Ashley Savage confirmed that “the incident occurred while the female victim was attempting to obtain signatures for an upcoming election.”
“The suspect … remains held in the Arlington County Detention Facility on the assault charges,” Savage told ARLnow. “The case remains open and additional charges could be sought at a later time based on the findings of the follow-up investigation.”
Clement said she and at least one witness had difficulty reaching 911 during the attack, receiving busy signals on multiple attempts. Dispatchers called back eventually, she said, but police did not arrive for about 20 minutes.
“We just said get the cops here, this is a major incident, somebody’s going to get hurt,” Clement said.
Clement, who has run for local office well over a dozen times since 2011, is an independent who in recent years has run largely on a platform opposing “Missing Middle” housing policy and what she views as excessive county spending. She received 17% of the vote in the November 2025 County Board race, her best showing in recent cycles.
She said she has been petitioning at Central Library and in the Westover neighborhood for about a decade without any violent incidents. She and Wingard returned to Westover on Sunday and to the library on Monday to continue gathering signatures.
Clement said that the suspect seemed to be “in a psychotic state” and was removed from the scene on a stretcher with restraints. She said Arlington County should be doing a better job of addressing mental health issues, including making sure people who might be a danger to the community are not left on the streets.
“I genuinely believe that if my friend David had not been able to hold that guy down, he was doing some serious damage to at least one or two other people,” Clement said. “My friend was a hero here.”
