A 57-year-old North Reading woman accused of tormenting a Donald Trump supporter by stealing American flags and repeatedly defacing a campaign sign the U.S. Army veteran put out in front of his Andover home was arrested yesterday after police say she nearly ran the man over with her car while trying to flee the scene.

“(The sign) bothered me but it was mostly the flags that bothered me. I get all upset,” 76-year-old Arthur Gonsalves said, fighting back tears, of his frequently damaged display. “I have an uncle that was killed in World War II. I come from a line of military men. It bothers me.”

Susan Bryant will be arraigned tomorrow in Lawrence District Court on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon (motor vehicle) and four counts of defacing property, a police spokesman said. Bryant was arrested after Andover police officers responding to a report of a spray-painted Trump campaign sign early yesterday morning spoke with Gonsalves, who told them he was nearly crushed by Bryant’s car when he tried to confront her.

This is not the first time a Trump supporter in the Bay State has reported damaged or defaced campaign signs.

Earlier this month a Haverhill man told police he caught a woman pulling six campaign signs off his front lawn. She was later arrested. Other Trump signs have been reported vandalized in Dorchester — another was set on fire in Hull.

Gonsalves — who installed four cameras around his home in an attempt to record the vandal’s license plate — told the Herald he’s spent most of the summer lying awake at night, wondering if the stranger who has been stealing his American flags and marring his handmade campaign sign would strike again.

This time, Gonsalves said it was his newly installed ?motion detector that made the difference.

“I have film of her on three different occasions and this time we had a motion detection alarm set up, so at 3:30 a.m. the alarm rang in my bedroom,” Gonsalves said. “I was like a fireman — I jumped in my clothes and ran outside.”

But by the time Gonsalves reached his front yard, he saw that his sign had been ruined and there was no one in sight.

Realizing that the vandal who has been plaguing his family couldn’t have gone far, Gonsalves said he decided to take a look down a narrow dirt road near his house and spotted a parked vehicle.

“I walked up within 15 feet of her and I said, ‘So, you don’t like Donald Trump, huh?’ ” Gonsalves said. “She turned, she looked at me, she threw some stuff in the trunk … got in her car and ?drove off.”

Knowing that the dirt road was a dead end, Gonsalves said he simply waited for the mystery woman to return.

“Sure enough two or three minutes later, I see her headlights coming down. I raised my arms and said, ‘You know, I want to talk to you,’ but I couldn’t stop her,” Gonsalves said. “She put on her high beams and it sounded like she sped up from the sound of the car and … I jumped behind this little toy car and she hit it, which hit me.”

A man who opened the door at Bryant’s home yesterday told the Herald she did not want to ?comment.

Had Bryant stopped her car, Gonsalves said he would have had a simple request: “The American flag, do not deface it.”

“This is America. I have the right to do this,” Gonsalves said. “You have a right to do whatever you want. Just leave me alone. I have no use for it. She has been after me for a year.”

As for his sign, Gonsalves said he plans to restore it.

“I’ll clean it all up,” Gonsalves said. “It will be done before the day is over.”