Columnist Rowan Shoots Youth Trying to Enter His Home

Syndicated columnist and television commentator Carl Rowan shot and wounded an unarmed youth who was among a group of intruders drinking beer and smoking marijuana while using his pool and Jacuzzi early today.

Rowan, 62, was standing at the back door of his home at about 2 a.m. when he fired a .22-caliber handgun once and struck Ben Neal Smith, 18, of Chevy Chase, Md., District of Columbia Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile said.

Smith, who was at Georgetown Hospital in good condition, and Launa Bachman, 19, of Bethesda, Md., have been charged with unlawful entry, Gentile said.

Rowan said he was confronted by Smith at his back door and the young man “insisted that he was coming in.”

“I said, ‘You’d better freeze because I have a gun.’ He said, ‘Aw, hell, I’m coming in.’ He lunged for me, and I fired a warning shot, hitting him in the hand,” said Rowan, adding that he fired from “point-blank range.”