Official’s Wife Mugged in La Jolla

Navigating violence-plagued Tijuana was a piece of cake. La Jolla’s boutique belt proved another matter.

The wife of a Mexican governor was mugged in broad daylight Saturday while strolling through the wealthy seaside enclave with her husband.

Angela Stelzer de Canales, 49, suffered a broken arm when she was pulled to the sidewalk by an unidentified man who snatched her purse and ran off near the heart of La Jolla’s upscale shopping district, according to San Diego police and Mexican officials.

Stelzer’s husband, Fernando Canales Clariond, is governor of the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon. She heads a state child welfare agency.

The couple stayed in La Jolla after a two-day conference in Tijuana of governors from states on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Stelzer said their main reason for visiting San Diego was to see the city’s trolley system, similar to one under consideration in the industrial city of Monterrey, the state capital.

The incident took place about 5 p.m. as the couple walked to afternoon Mass along Girard Avenue, a stretch of shops and restaurants five blocks from the beach.

Stelzer said her husband was checking the church schedule when she was attacked.

“Fernando went ahead a few meters to see if Mass was really at 5 p.m., and right then I felt somebody was pulling me from behind by my purse,” she said in an account issued Monday by the Nuevo Leon state government.

The fleeing robber tossed the purse--sans some of its contents--into bushes just up the block. Two passersby came to Stelzer’s aid while another witness gave chase, she said. The man fled in a Suzuki sport utility vehicle driven by an accomplice, police said.

Stelzer was treated at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla.

San Diego police spokesman Bill Robinson said the robber made off with $900 to $1,000 in U.S. and Mexican currency. Stelzer said she also lost her passport.

Canales mentioned the incident to Monterrey reporters while discussing public safety in his home state. He sounded a philosophical note: that crime is everywhere.

“Not in that country, nor in that city, which is one of the safest, are people free from the possibility of being crime victims,” Canales said.