The Nation - News from April 20, 1988

District of Columbia Police Chief Maurice Turner said he will not halt neighborhood anti-drug patrols despite an incident in which followers of Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan allegedly assaulted a suspected drug dealer. Members of the Nation of Islam, a group led by Farrakhan, had been summoned by frustrated residents of a neighborhood surrounding what police call one of the city’s most notorious open-air drug marts. On Monday, according to police, a handful of Farrakhan followers conducting an anti-drug patrol confronted a suspected drug dealer outside an apartment complex. The group allegedly beat the man after he produced a sawed-off shotgun, and beat a television reporter and cameraman when the two refused to turn over their film of the incident.