After seeing her friend and colleague Harry Mathis at the mayor’s State of the City address on Jan. 11, District 1 City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner announced her shock upon hearing that Mathis — a longtime San Diego civic leader and current chairman of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System — his wife, Mary, and a neighbor were victims of a violent home invasion and robbery that very night. “He was at the State of the City last night, and I was talking with him,” Lightner said to La Jolla Town Council trustees at their Jan. 12 meeting. “We left there at the same time. Little did I know that in a half hour he was at home shooting at someone.” According to San Diego Police Lt. David Rohowits’ police report, a 78-year-old male — identified as Mathis by neighbors — was parking his car in the garage of his University City home just after 9 p.m. when a man accosted him, demanding cash and wielding a handgun. Mathis, who carried a concealed handgun, fired two shots at the suspect — neither of which were believed to have hit the suspect. The attacker then gained control of Mathis’ handgun, struck him on the forehead and ordered him inside the home, where Mathis’ wife and a neighbor were being held by two other male suspects in masks. After the suspects searched the home for money, they lit fire to Mathis’ car in the garage and fled the scene. “I was in tears this morning, but he is fine,” Lightner said at the meeting. “He is at home, and the police are aggressively pursuing the folks who did this to him and his wife, Mary.” The San Diego Police Robbery Unit and Metro Arson Strike Team (MAST) are currently conducting the follow-up investigation. Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call the Robbery Unit at (619) 531-2299.