Bullet Grazes Chin of Assemblyman’s Wife

SACRAMENTO —  The wife of Assembly Republican leader Ross Johnson of La Habra was slightly injured when a bullet shattered the windows of her van while she was driving along Interstate 80 near the state Capitol, his office said Friday.

Anne Richards, Johnson’s press secretary, said doctors told them the “bullet grazed the chin” of Diane Johnson, 47, when she was driving to Davis from Sacramento early Thursday afternoon.

“She had some stitches, but she’s fine now and back at work today (Friday),” Richards said. “Diane was really not aware of what happened. She thought she had been cut by flying glass.”

After the incident, she drove on to Davis and called the police.

Richards said the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department has no leads in the case, no suspects and the bullet has not be found.

Asked if there were any political implications to the incident, she said, “No, we think it was just a plinker. They’ve had a lot of problems in that area with people shooting guns, according to the sheriff’s office.

“It’s rural with fields and all. So we just assume it was a stray bullet of some kind.”

Diane Johnson was reared in La Habra and met her husband while both were students at Cal State Fullerton. He majored in history and she in library science, said Phil Miller, an aide in Ross Johnson’s district office.

She worked as a librarian at the county library in Santa Ana before Johnson’s election to the Assembly in 1978, after which the family moved to Sacramento, Miller said. She currently is employed as a librarian in the Sacramento area. The couple have two teen-age daughters, Molly and Susan.

When his wife was injured, Johnson was in Southern California. He returned to Sacramento and was working at his desk in the Capitol on Friday, according to Richards.

A Yolo County sheriff’s spokesman said the incident could have been a random sniping or an errant bullet from a recreational shooter.

The spokesman said there have been several recent shootings involving automobiles in the area. People with guns sometimes use the unpopulated bypass next to the freeway for recreational shooting purposes, the spokesman added.

Staff writer Leslie Berkman also contributed to this story.