Legislators Who Were Shot: Glazer’s 2003 Shooting

On October 2003, Steve Glazer was 2003, while driving with his family in Orinda, Glazer was shot in the neck by a teenager with a high-powered pellet gun. “The .17-caliber projectile just missed his carotid artery and lodged next to his spine.”

If elected to the State Senate in the May, Glazer would not be the first California legislator to have been shot before assuming that office.

• On May 6, 1842, Lilburn W. Boggs was shot four times (almost certainly by Orrin Porter Rockwell) as he read a newspaper in his study. Two shots lodged in his skull, another in his neck, and a fourth entered his throat, whereupon Boggs swallowed it. Seven years later, Boggs was elected to the Assembly in 1849-1850.

• On April 5, 1870, Leon D. Freer was shot in the finger by Assemblyman John A. Odell. A decade later, Freer was elected to the State Assembly.

• On November 18, 1978, Jackie Speier was shot five times by followers of Jim Jones during a congressional visit to the Jonestown colony in Guyana. Eight years later, Speier was elected to the State Assembly.

• On December 13, 1978, Art Agnos was shot twice by militants during a string of attacks known as the “Zebra murders.”