The Nation - News from Sept. 13, 1988

Long before a June 14 incident in which he wounded a teen-age intruder at his home, columnist Carl T. Rowan testified, he warned a police officer that if anyone ever confronted him on his property late at night, “I would have to assume they came with evil intent and I would have to shoot them, and I did not want to do that.” But the officer, Jasper L. Chatman, testified in the pretrial hearing in District of Columbia Superior Court that Rowan never made such a statement. Rowan, who has been charged with possessing an unregistered weapon and ammunition, maintains that his son, a former FBI agent, was told by city officials he was not required to register the gun. Police Inspector James R. Lee testified that the law prohibits anyone but the registered owner from using a weapon.