"Two top city officials said Wednesday they were not aware that housing authority director Earl Pullen had permission to carry a concealed weapon until he was arrested Saturday night.

Pullen was charged with discharging a firearm in the city, a misdemeanor, when be fired a handgun in the air in an attempt to move a group of young people from a street comer in a public housing development.

In a November application for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, Pullen wrote that he needed to be armed in his job.

'As the director of the housing authority I am committed to enforce lease conditions to include and maintain a drug-free environment,' he wrote. I will be conducting raids, etc., with Charlottesville Police at public housing' complexes.

In a two-page statement released today through his lawyer, David Toscano, Pullen acknowledged that he fired one warning shot to express intolerance for what Pullen said 'appeared to be an illegal drug activity on the street.'

Pullen was trained in the use of handguns by a firearms expert certified by the National Rifle Association according to the weapons permit on file in Albemarle County Circuit Court.

He said the incident was an 'error of judgment on my part that I deeply regret.'

'I do not tolerate persons taking the law into their own hands, no matter how noble the cause.' Pullen said in the statement. 'And I do not tolerate it in myself. It will not happen again.'

Pullen has agreed to rescind his application to carry a concealed weapon, City Manager Cole Hendrix said Wednesday.

'He will do that,' Hendrix said. 'We discussed it and the conclusion was he's not to have a weapon as part of his job.'

He did not say when the permit would be surrendered.

The application for the permit, which was approved Nov. 13 by Circuit Judge E. Gerald Tremblay, states Pullen's job duties as housing authority director made it necessary for him to carry a .38-caliber revolver, a .25-caliber hand gun and a 9mm automatic gun.

Hendrix, who is executive director of the housing authority, and City Councilor Tom Vandever, chairman of the housing authority board of commissioners, said they had no discussions with Pullen about carrying concealed weapons since he started Oct. 1.

'I would have not allowed him to do that,' said Hendrix, who has a Permit to carry a concealed weapon when he accompanies police on patrols.

'I don't think that's his job, to be a policeman.'

Vandever frowned on Pullen's decision to apply for the gun permit without seeking approval from city officials.

Pullen had permission to carry a concealed weapon at his former post as public housing director in Greenwich, Conn., Vandever said. 'I didn't know he was planning to apply for it,' he said. 'Had he asked me I probably would have discouraged it.'

'I think it's reasonable to think he just did it as a matter of routine.'

Pullen has declined to comment on the incident.

Pullen's prepared statement today described efforts to eliminate illegal drug activity in public housing as one of his 'primary goals,'

On Pullen's first day on the job, Vandever told Pullen, 'the drug problem is the major problem that has to be dealt with. I told him if we don't deal with the drug problem everything else we do in public housing doesn't really matter,' Vandever said.

Pullen is one of more than 250 Albemarle County residents who have a concealed weapon permit.

According to Tremblay, Virginia law allows judges only limited authority to deny the permits, some of which contain only brief explanations such as for 'personal safety,' or, 'I carry large amounts of money to the bank.'

'I sign literally hundreds of these a year,' Tremblay said. 'Today I probably signed six or eight, and I average about ten a week.'

The permit process includes a search for any criminal record or conviction of any offense. Felons may not hold the permits.

Pullen's application showed a September 1986 conviction on a charge of driving while intoxicated.

Weeks after Tremblay granted Pullen's request to carry concealed weapons, the judge revised his interpretation of Virginia law to limit applicants to only one weapon.

'I don't think people should be allowed to have a whole bunch of weapons,' he said. 'I think one is enough.'

Hendrix, Vandever and other city officials have praised the new director's activism and visibility in public housing since he started work, and have characterized Pullen's misdemeanor charge as a 'personnel matter' that is being resolved through an undisclosed disciplinary action,

Peter Flierl, the former housing authority chairman in Greenwich, Conn. who hired Pullen as director, called him a 'tough, fair, caring individual who is not going to let people push poor people around.'

Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Deaton requested that a prosecutor from outside Charlottesville handle Pullen's case. Pullen, as housing authority director, heads a city department.

Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Herbert A. Pickford appointed Fluvanna County Commonwealth's Attorney Frank Gallo to handle the case 'to avoid the appearance of impropriety.' Deaton said." (Douglas Holt, The Daily Progress, December 7, 1989)