CITIZEN-LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORT RECLAIMS HILLTOP

The sound of gunfire delivered Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood a noisy wake-up
call just over a decade ago when 10 Army Rangers exchanged hundreds of
rounds in a shootout with reputed drug dealers.

Homes and cars were riddled with bullet holes. Amazingly, no one was hurt.
But the gunplay helped shatter complacency over deterioration of the
neighborhood and the infiltration of Los Angeles street gangs.

After the shootout, a mother of two told a reporter: "Our lives are in
danger here. People got to stand up and fight, to pull together . . . The
police know who's dealing drugs here but they don't do anything."

One of the Rangers involved in the 1989 shootout was a Hilltop resident and
organizer of a neighborhood block-watch program. He had videotaped drug
dealing activity on the street where the firefight took place. "We gave them
the tapes," he said, "and the police just said, 'Yes, they are drug
dealers.'"

"We've got an L.A.-based problem of L.A. magnitude and a Washington
Constitution," lamented a Tacoma Police Department spokesman. "We don't have
the laws available to effectively deal with crack dealers and users . . ."

In the three years before the shooting, police had identified between 95 and
100 California gang members or associates in Tacoma, and reported that
another 361 residents had been recruited by gangs -- specifically the
notorious Bloods and Crips.

At the time of the shootout, Larry Norton, a Seattle firefighter and
lifelong Hilltop resident, predicted: "This will heal." Norton was right.
Within two years the counteroffensive had begun.

The intensive police and community efforts that followed the shootout have
now been so successful that the task force assembled to deal with Hilltop's
woes is disbanding.

Getting the job done took eight years, the Tacoma Police Department, the
FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. Attorney's office
and the neighborhood's law-abiding citizens.

The battle was waged in the courtroom, where 85 people were convicted on
federal charges and another 141 on state charges.

The battle was waged in the streets, where hundreds of homes were built or
renovated and crime-attracting buildings were eliminated.

U.S. Attorney Kate Pflaumer summed up the recipe for success: "If you take
the bad actors out and the community comes together to make their own
streets safe, that's what makes it work."

For this hard work the residents and law-enforcement agencies have earned a
resounding well done.